Among The Stars
by StardustCoyote
Summary: A secret was left buried in the snow of Fichina, one the Cornerian Goverment hoped would stay there. When Wolf O'Donnell is hired to dig it up, he gets more than he bargained for. What he finds could tear apart the fragile system yet again, or destroy him once Star Fox is brought in to handle the problem. It might destroy StarFox too, if they're not careful.
1. Things Have Changed

**Authors note:** This is my very first attempt at writing fanfiction. Reviews and criticism are adored, but please be gentle. Canon is loose enough to begin with I may have broken it in places, and we're pretending Command never happened. Rated T for cursing, later violence. Rating may change in the future.

**June 30,2014: Note** I have enough points of critique once I posted chapter 13, that I am going back and revising/expanding the earlier chapters to attempt to address the this story took over my creative muse and will not let go until it's done and it's done decently well. I'm attempting to make sure that nothing breaks coherency wise in the revisions, but of course let me know if that's not the case. For readers of the first version - ship names got altered, and I actually flipped Wolf's first and middle names around. It made more sense and was something I should have done to begin with. A couple chapters got condensed and renamed and I'm trying to put in some extra content throughout to make the other characters seem less flat.

* * *

_"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." -_ Vincent Van Gogh

**Corneria City - Day 0 - 20:07 Local Time (12 Years ALW)**

The endless expanse of black dotted with points of light represents something to everyone. A terrifying emptiness and silence. An endless expanse that becomes a mirror to one's own soul, full of joy or regrets. Hope that something better than their own lives is out there. For Ember Wolf O'Donnell it had meant the freedom and the possibility of another day. Possibilities and freedom he no longer had.

The once muscular lupine tried to find a more comfortable way to sleep in the seat of his Wolfen, grounded in an unheated hangar in the rough part of Coneria City . Two years after the defeat of the Aparoids work for his team had dwindled to nothing. Justifications being irrelevant, saving his rival had cost him in the eyes of certain people. People who no longer feared or respected him enough to keep a hold on the small empire he'd built. Arms smuggling was less attractive when there was no war to be found and everyone was focused on rebuilding. Rebuilding and cleaning up. What had been left of Sargasso after various authorities got their paws on too many contacts, and others fled for points further out or to find other ways to earn their living, didn't amounted to much now but a hunk of powerless metal floating in space.

Leon Polwaski had bailed first, and Wolf had not been sorry to see him go, other than finding himself without anyone to gripe to. He'd never really cared for any of his teammates, well that was a lie, he didn't _like_ most of them but he had cared about them a little. Except Pigma Dengar, long since tossed out and hopefully dead, who could rot in hell for all eternity and that would suit Wolf just fine. Panther Carouso had followed a few days after Polwaski, with a shockingly polite conversation he was doing so. They'd split their shares of what was left after their battle-class carrier ship, the _Cerberus Defiant_, had been sold and parted ways knowing that if their paths crossed again it could equally be a polite nod or a shot to fulfil a bounty that marked their next meeting.

Coughs wracked the lupine's body as he tugged his flight jacket that served as a blanket tighter around him. The dim light of the few systems still powered on in the Wolfen only illuminated the frost starting to collect on the edges of the window. _Not the end befitting "Lord" O'Donnell is it? Alone and freezing or starving to death, grounded on a semi-free and peaceful Corneria. Who the hell would have seen that coming._ A harsh chuckle escaped the gray muzzle. He'd expected for a very long time to meet an unsavory end, it just hadn't been this one or anything so quiet. Part of him wanted to still believe that he'd played his role well, he'd contributed in small but meaningful ways to the way both the Lylat War and the Invasion had ended. It was why he'd spared and then saved Fox McCloud after all wasn't it? Not that the younger team lead had probably figured that out yet or ever would. Not that Wolf was entirely sure it mattered now.

He closed his good eye and let out a raspy whuff, too tired to go out and try to steal something to eat. _Might as well sleep now and try tommorow_. No sooner had he started to halfway drift off when the beep of a communicator roused him back to wakeful-ness. He squinted staring at the caller ID which wasn't anything he recognized and shoved the jacket down between the pilots seat and the side of the cockpit, while running a hand through his unkempt hair and fur. That the cockpit was dim was just as well, no need to highlight how bad of shape he was actually in, and he put on his best glower when he answered. "State your business."

Initially it was just static, making the mercenary wonder if the call was being redirected or otherwise tampered with. A low growl escaped him, he was in no mood for those games. The image then snapped into clarity, displaying a picture of a brown colored weasel, dressed in a suit jacket.

"Well, it would seem that the rumors are true, Wolf O'Donnell is still to be found."

"Yeah? And what of it?" His voice was gravelly, rougher than normal but the caller wouldn't know that and if anything it made him sound a hair more intimidating. Now if he could just keep from hacking halfway through this.

"Assuming you aren't already engaged, I have a job offer for you. Although if you're too busy to take it, I can certainly ask elsewhere"

_Fuck. That bastard probably knows that I have nothing._ "I'm listening."

"Very well then Mr. O'Donnell. You may call me Remus. I am an intermediary for another party who wishes to remain anonymous. What my employer is looking for is a relatively simple task. The retrieval of the data storage from an abandoned base. He does not strictly own said shelter or it's contents, however, I'm led to believe that isn't strictly a problem for you either."

"What's the catch? You aren't calling me up to play errand boy if it's that simple."

"Indeed, no. The catch is that the base location in Fichina, in the Northern Hemisphere. As I'm sure you are aware, the climate control has not been restored anywhere except for Fichina City itself. Additionally, there are rumors that the base, while abandoned by the Cornerian Military, is still powered and active with all of the unmanned defenses."

"That's a hell of a catch. What's the pay?"

"A million credits, or the equivalent there of, in any currency of your choosing. Cash can be arranged if you prefer that to a digital transfer."

_That's high. Possibly too high, even for this job._ Instinct and experience told Wolf that there was no way that this job was fully on the level with him, for that kind of cash. _But I don't have a choice do I?_ His face remained absolutely impassive, but inwardly he cringed knowing that. How long had it been since any of the paths he'd taken had been free choice? _Now I know I'm out of my head, there never was any turning back. Hell with it all, I am *Lord* Wolf O'Donnell, and I definitely still have this! Except for that ship part…_

"Done, on one condition. I want ten percent up front for expenses, not reimbursable if the mission fails." _Given I'd be dead, good luck getting it back then!_

"Twenty thousand."

"Fifty. Wireless, today. What, you thought ship fuel was free?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Fifty it is then. I suppose I should count myself lucky, your reputation for a hard bargain was far worse than that." There was just a hint of mocking in the weasel's tone. Wolf might have missed it if it hadn't been for his lupine ears that caught near everything.

There was an audible snarl and scowl on the pilot's face as Remus continued "No hard feelings, it's simply business. Fifty thousand credits, simply reply back to this with a wave containing whatever account information you wish it sent to. It should arrive there no later than 10 am, Corneria City time. How long do you estimate you will need to accomplish this?"

Wolf thought for a moment, the ship repairs he'd have to do, even doing most of the work himself given he knew the ship in and out, who would work for him anyways was besides the point, would definitely take longer than he wanted to let on. "Gotta clear my schedule first, that'll add a couple days." The lie came out as smooth as truth, the weasel finding nothing amiss with it. Apparently he wasn't all that in the know. "Say two weeks. Give or take a day or two."

"Perfectly acceptable timeline. My thanks to you Mr. O'Donnell. I look forward to hearing from you." With that, the weasel gave him a curt nod and winked out from the com. Wolf typed in the message he needed to send and leaned back pondering this change of affairs. _What would they possibly have left there, of all places, that never got picked up again? Odd. Well, dying in a fight there beats starving here._

With that he grabbed his flight jacket again and settled back down eventually falling into a fitful sleep.

* * *

**Aboard GreatFox - Corneria City - Day 0 - 20:30 Local Time**

Fox was learning to hate winter on Corneria. It wasn't the cold really that bothered him, not at all really. It was that the cold bothered everyone else, and everyone else insisted on being inside. Inside meant all the annoying speaking engagements that General Pepper seemed all too happy to sign him or the Star Fox team up for were in packed rooms where too many eyes were putting him on a pedestal high enough that it was frightening.

The whole team was busy, but not with what they wanted to be doing. None of them had gotten to see the inside of an Arwing in months other than for small appearances and a few publicity stunts. At least Slippy, who was the least requested speaker was getting to spend time working on designs at least a few days a week. He tapped his fingers on the console of the bridge aboard the Great Fox in aggravation as he read the latest request, of course signed by Pepper personally yet again. His tail twitched back and forth behind him, he wanted back in his flight suit not the jeans and hoodie he was currently wearing.

"Ugh! Not this again. Fox, tell the man no!" The cry came from behind him as Falco had spied the latest email from Pepper looking over Fox's shoulder.

"I'd love to, but how else are we going to pay the bills around here Falco? It's not like after all the repairs to the Great Fox and our Arwings we're exactly going to retire anytime soon on what was left." Fox gestured around to the refurbished bridge, at least they'd gotten comfy chairs out of the deal. Everything else looked like it always had, with the exceptions that the technology had been updated a little.

"I don't care! We'll eat Ramen for a month man, just like old times. Anything, ANYTHING is better than this. C"mon." The blue pilot protested. "You keep this up I'm going to start speaking my mind at one of these gigs!" The expression on Falco's face told Fox that it was anything but a joke. Tempers were starting to fray, and that didn't bode well at all when it came to the hot-headed avian not opening his mouth at inopportune moments.

Fox sighed, and put a hand on his muzzle. He wanted to have a counter argument, but he couldn't bring himself to actually believe any of them. One ear twitched hearing another set of steps behind him that was much less excited. He spun the chair around to fully face Falco and the graying hare who came up beside him. Peppy looked more tired than Fox ever remembered him being, and that worried him deeply.

"Falco's right. This is getting absurd. If we're not going on missions Fox, I'm going to toss the hat in. I'm too old for all this running around just to please politicians."

Fox almost cringed at the idea of Peppy actually leaving, he'd been so close to the man for so long ever since his real father had died. "Okay, okay I get the point. I'll tell him no. Why don't we take a little break, go somewhere nice for a few days. We can afford that if we get another couple of jobs after. I'll see what we can find that is more what we actually want to be doing. can't promise I'll find much that's all that great though. "

"Thank you Peppy, at least somebody manages to talk some sense into our "fearless" leader." Falco folded his arms giving Fox a pointed look. He'd been going absolutely stir crazy, and Fox realized now just how badly.

A blue furred vixen walked in and sat down in the next chair. She gave him a small smile, though it didn't reach her eyes. She'd taken to dressing the way she had when Fox met her, the white cloth and jewelry turned everyone's heads. "I promise Fox, Pepper owes us enough he really shouldn't be taking offense at a single turn down of a relatively unimportant request. It would be good to remind him we aren't his subordinates to order around I think."

Fox wrinkled his nose, giving her a mildly annoyed look. He hated it when she read his mind even though he knew it was not entirely something she always meant to do. Their relationship had gone from head over heels to something resembling tepid in the past couple of years, it hadn't upset either of them when they'd decided to take a break. The orange-red fox had no idea how to fix it either. He himself while annoyed, was greatly relieved that he wasn't watching her fly out into danger every other minute.

"I'm already typing out the rejection guys. Okay? Sheesh." Keys clicked as the leader of StarFox typed out a quick but courteous email back to the general. He paused when he read over the words again on the display. They really had gotten him tamed hadn't they? Ugh. He hit send anyways and leaned back in the chair putting his boots up on the edge of the console.

Peppy was just looking at him shaking his head with a vaugely amused grin, as Falco was already making his way down the hall to go inform Slippy mostly by yelling from as far as he could. A mental debate between exactly which vacation spot they might go for, which one would have the least number of people and crowds to harass them started to form in Fox's mind. Beach? Nah, it always got sand in your fur and he never did get why folks loved it quite so much. Mountains would be better. Maybe that range in Venom now that it was habitable again, he'd heard the cabins were quite nice regardless of the time of year if you chose the right spot.

The train of thought was broken by another beep from the console indicating another message had come in. "Seriously?" Fox asked with a bit of exasperation in his voice upon seeing it again was from Pepper. "Maybe you're more right than I thought Krystal. Man's forgetting we're mercenaries, not enlisted."

His eyes widened though as he read the contents. Far from an angry reply, it was a cancellation of the previous request and a new one for an immediate briefing on an urgent matter that had just reached Pepper's desk. A _real_ mission. A _paid_ mission.

"HEY GUYS! What do you think about an actual paid mission!" The call echoed down the hall.

"HELL YES!" Came an answer in unison from the toad and bird who were hurrying back to find out what was going on.

"Alright then, apparently this ones classified enough again we get to find out in person. Maybe some real excitement around here for a change. You comin too Peppy or you really planning on retiring completely?" Fox looked over at the hare with worry in his eyes again. Would they really be going out without him this time? It was so hard to imagine, the oldest member of the team had taken on the role of raising him and teaching him how to lead the team once his father had been shot down leaving him without either parent. There really wasn't a time in his life he hadn't been able to rely on the older man.

"I said no more speaking engagements Fox. I suspect I'm probably going to retire sometime soon, but you knew that was coming. Why not one last hurrah?" Peppy shrugged with a good-natured grin.


	2. Can't Let You Do That

**Author's Notes:  
**Thank you everyone who left a review! The encouragement means the world to me. So, first, the reason for the delay is that I took some time to sort out the rest of my plot outline. Hopefully this will make for a more coherent story in the end now that I know everything that will happen! Secondly, I've tried to take some advice I got in the initial reviews that my chapters can be longer. This isn't grossly long still, but certainly much longer than the first two! Hopefully you Enjoy! R&R please!

**June 30, 2014 Update:** Chapter updated and attempted to make the fight scene clearer by switching viewpoints less. Brought some elements in the story that I decided on later up front where they belong.

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**Fichina Air Space – Day 2 – 01:27 Local Time**

The near silence in the cockpit of the Wolfen was unnerving. Wolf found himself straining to hear the absent hum through the ship that normally accompanied the engines and various systems as they propelled it through space. Only four systems had been left on - life support, short-range sensors, cloaking, and the landing thrusters that usually weren't used outside of atmo but would function in vacuum.

Wolf hung back from where the edge of the long-range sensors in Fichina city watched until long after most of the city would be asleep. Transport ships wouldn't be landing at this hour, drastically unlike the 24/7 activity around the much larger Corneria City leaving fewer eyes watching the skies. Powered down this far, the ship wouldn't show up as anything more than space trash if anyone picked it up at all. It's pilot was busy watching the read outs on the console, using the landing thrusters as little as possible to guide him and relying on the gravitational pull of the planet to provide most of his motion.

He cut the main engines in once he was on the opposite side from the city itself, confident in his ability to wait as long as theoretically possible and still land. The small cockpit came to life again with all the sounds that to him were as familiar as the wind or the rain were to others as he guided down to a valley that would have some manner of shelter from the storms that had taken over the landscape again. Landing gear depressed into the otherwise undisturbed snow, followed by the landing of boots as he dropped down off a wing and took a glance around getting his bearings and recalibrating his eye piece for the local maps before setting off in the direction of the base. Wind whipped through the air carrying still-falling snow in circles and into the fur on Wolf's face. It reminded him of what he'd once called home, half expecting to hear the howls of others of his kind. But they weren't here, and he would never set foot there again.

The lone figure, dressed entirely in white other than his boots, trudged through the snow for several hours finding nothing worth his attention other than evergreens and dead logs from other species that had grown up here during the climate control. His cybernetic eye picked up the structures ahead long before his normal one did. Heat signatures, an amount of luminance that was far greater than sun or moon reflection would account for. The rumors that the base was still powered certainly were true, which made him wondered how true it was that the place was actually abandoned.

He came to the fence marking the perimeter of the base, that familiar tingle of standing too close to something powdered running through his body as his fur lifted up from the charge near by. Wolf crouched down, and backed into the trees again, watching as he worked his way around the entire fence looking for his entry point. Robotic patrols came by every few minutes, but no living ones that he could see. It was impossible to figure out if anyone was actually inside from out here. Digging a thick wire with a hook from his pack he tied one end to a metal rod he stuck in the ground, shoving it into the layer of frozen dirt below the snow. The other end he swung towards the top of the electric fence, letting the insulated wire run through his gloves before letting go entirely as the cable grounded out a section of fence. Wolf ran, leaping to grab more than halfway up the tall chain fence and hoisted himself over the barbed wire at the top. The moment his paws touched the ground again he darted for a spot between two of the exterior heater units and the building, pausing to catch his breath and wait to hear if the alarms blared.

He muffled a fit of coughing into the sleeve of the thick parka he wore, relieved but still wary when no sounds of discovery reached his ears. Between patrols he cut through the glass of one of the windows into a darkened office, and reached through to unlatch the mechanism and let himself in. His remaining eye scanned the room for motion and found none. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if the office had been abandoned in a hurry and untouched since.

Papers were scattered everywhere, a thick layer of dust covering everything. Personal items such as photo frames and a few books and knick-knacks were left scattered on the desk. Binders and manuals still sat on shelves, the file cabinet drawers left open with folders still inside. Wolf almost snarked into his com about the state the Cornerians always left things in when he remembered there was no-one left on the other end to hear the banter. He frowned and rifled through a few of the files and binders, before quietly setting them back down and putting one big ear to the door and cracking it open.

The hallway revealed a series of doors, many of them left open to rooms that were in similar states to this one. Whatever reason this place had been abandoned, it had been done in a heck of a hurry. Which was strange, there were no signs of anything wrong other than that inside or outside the facility. "Huh." _Maybe this is just gonna be a cakewalk after all._

No sooner had he thought that than the sound of engines landing outside. _Damnit all. Would be my luck._ He darted out into the hallway, blaster out, going as fast as he dared while trying to be cautious of what might be still here. Several doors were kicked in without worry for leaving the broken locks as evidence someone had been here. If he didn't find the encrypted data unit that was supposed to be here soon, he never would.

* * *

**Fichina Military Base – Day 2 – 07:48 Local Time**

A quad of Arwings landed onto the fenced in grounds in front of the base, each broadcasting a code identifying them as official Cornerian Military ships. Slippy had installed the code-generators after finding out that the bases automated defenses were still active in parts. Falco hit the ground first, blaster at his hip but not drawn, as he glanced around with a shrug to the others as they climbed down from their own ships.

"Ok. Pity mission. No way this was urgent." He remarked as the group headed inside, making sure to watch their backs out of simple routine as opposed to anticipation.

"Beats another military press conference or dinner. At least you get to bring your gun and not that awful thing you call a suit." Fox quipped back, far from tense about this particular mission. Dissapointed was more a sum of what the team leader felt, pity mission was right. "Y'know guys, maybe we ought to start looking at private sector jobs again."

The old hare was still getting out of his fighter, muttering about the cold under his breath. "Don't know that they'd hire us Fox. Most of them don't think they can afford us, even if we never really did raise our rates. That whole prestige thing is kind of biting us in the tail these days."

"No kidding. I haven't been able to say what I really think about of anyone or anything in a couple of years. If I have to vouch for the support of one more company that somehow we used their stuff along the way..." Falco had often been tapped to speak on behalf of Space Dynamics, or a few other companies when Fox wasn't available which was often these days.

"At least you aren't the one they call in for the political stuff. Maybe I ought to run for office myself just so they'll _stop_ asking me to speak for other people." Fox interjected, rolling his eyes. "That or go be a recluse. The soccer moms and teenage girls flocking me everywhere I go..ugh."

Peppy laughed as he checked his ammo "Funny, you don't see them doing that to me."

Krystal rolled her eyes. "Says the married member of the team. I think we've established Fox is impossible to live with." The red furred vulpine cringed, although he knew his ex meant it in good humor. They'd managed to stay friends although he hadn't figured out quite why that had happened either.

"Okay, down to business you guys. Besides, why don't you just tell them all that Krystal, maybe then they'd leave me alone." Fox looked out over the landscape and everyone fell quiet for a moment evaluating what was there just in case. This might have been a cake walk but none of them were foolish enough to walk into it quite as if it was one.

Krystal paused as something else skirted the edge of her awareness, and closed her eyes a moment and _felt_ the world around her rather than saw it. "We're not alone." The others gave her a brief look of disbelief, although they knew she would be right. Granted, it might as easily be a spirit, or something else left behind instead of another living person but the warnings that blue-furred fox could provide her team were worth heeding.

"Slippy, take the right, Falco take the left, I'll take the main entrance. Use the comms if you hear or see anything. Krystal, follow me and let me know if you sense anything different." The orders silenced any ponderings or chatter, as the team spread out towards the facility.

* * *

A quick glance through a window from the inside was enough to make Wolf want to cuss loudly, and enough to keep him from doing so. Arwings. _Great. Starfox. Did someone see me land? Even if they had they wouldn't be here so soon. If this is a setup I am going to wring that weasel's neck and use his pelt for a rug._

The next door didn't kick in as Wolf expected, he backed up and slammed his shoulder and weight into it and was met only with a loud thud. _Ow. Okay, armored door._ Good sign for finding things, bad one for getting in. He didn't have time to pick the lock and simply took his blaster and shot it giving the door another quick kick while the bolt was still hot enough to warp and let him in.

A quick glance around the room, and the lupine spotted what he was looking for. He'd seen it's type before, in circumstances far different than this. He stepped over to a blue enameled metal box that was roughly the size of a small suitcase. The front had the logo of the Corneria Military on it. A complicated physical lock adorned the top, next to a port for a data stick to be inserted to undo the more intelligent security built inside. Wolf yanked the power cord that hooked it into the grid and hefted the remarkably heavy thing up on a shoulder, holding his blaster with his other hand. Once he had it balanced, he took off for the route that would lead him back the way he had come in. There was no chance he was getting out the front door now.

Behind him, he heard the voice of a female that he knew he wouldn't see if he turned around. _Ember... _Wolf turned the setting on his blaster down a couple notches, hoping it wouldn't mean his own death.

* * *

The static over the comm unit told Fox that someone was about to start talking. "Falco to team. Pretty sure I heard blaster fire inside. No visual yet. Falco out."

The vulpine frowned, glancing at Krystal beside him while he replied "Fox to Falco, rodger that. " He turned his head as a noise down the hallway caught his attention. The layout of the base gave him more than choice as to where it had come from. He drew his blaster and started heading towards where he thought the noise was from, letting the telepath with him motion which turns to take. He whispered quietly "Stay behind me, alright?"

_Fox, seriously, I know what I'm doing. One day you're going to get that through your thick skull._ The blue fox didn't reply audibly, but Fox heard her voice anyways. He felt a moment of guilt, he'd just been trying to protect her not imply she was incompetent. It had been the thing they'd fought most often about. _I know you mean well, but stop it! Also, go left here._

Letting his blaster lead, he took a quick peek around the corner and caught a glimpse of a split tail vanishing around the other corner. "Fox to team, it's Star Wolf. East side of the complex headed south for Wolf. Haven't seen the other two. Set your weapons to stun." _What the hell are they doing here? _Fox couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of things, and Star Wolf's behavior the past couple of years was one of them.

"Ugh. Figures that ugly mutt would be around to screw things up. On my way." Falco answered first, followed not to far behind by Peppy and Slippy

"Be careful, Fox!"

"I'm coming too!"

Despite the fact it was unsettling, the excitement of something that might turn out to be a real mission after all thrilled the team leader. He'd missed this, feeling _alive _instead of just stepping through the motions. A safe and settled life was driving him off the deep end slowly. He'd not known anything else really, graduating the Flight Academy's youngest pilot with the second-highest marks ever. The only records he hadn't managed to break were his own father's. He took off running towards where he'd seen the other mercenary go.

Rounding the corner again, he saw Wolf in between him and Falco who had just come around to to the opposite end of the hall. "Give it up Wolf! You're outnumbered."

"Not a chance McCloud! You want to take me down we do this in the air. Otherwise to hell with all of you!" Came the gravelly reply as the lupine dove for the recess of one of the doors in the hallway, the shots from both sides of the hallway narrowly missing him. Gray pointed ears poked out a moment later again as he fired a quick shot at the avian at the other side of the hall. Fox narrowly missed again and cussed, while he watched Falco get hit squarely in the shoulder let out a yell.

"Shit! Wolf just shot Falco. He's not shooting to stun guys, we probably shouldn't be either!" Krystal's voice came over the comm as she passed him chasing after the lupine while Fox stopped to check on his teammate.

"I'll be alright, hurts like hell but it's not going to kill me. Go get that stupid asshole Fox!" The blue feathered pilot grimaced and got up, one arm holding his shoulder and bolting.

"Fall back to the Arwings, that's you too Peppy and Slip. There's no way he's beating us in the air if he gets to his ship. Keep an eye out for the rest of StarWolf I still haven't heard anything from them." Fox yelled over the comm before he turned putting everything he had into catching up to the other two. _Wolf, why this and why now? You haven't gone near military targets for over a decade, and normally Leon and Panther would be tormenting us by now. And I thought we had stopped trying to kill each other..._

He would have loved to known the answers but right now making sure Wolf didn't kill anyone on his team was Fox's main concern, followed by not failing their mission. So much for StarWolf saving them instead of fighting them, that hadn't lasted very long. Fox as usual found himself carried by events he felt like he had no control over and could only do his best to handle the fallout. He spied the open office door and threw his back up against the wall outside of it before checking to see if Wolf was still in there. The back of the mercenary was to him, having just thrown the box out of the window he'd opened earlier and Wolf turned hearing the noise. "Wolf, stand down. I'd rather deliver you alive than dead."

"I'm probably a dead man sooner than later, Fox. Try a better threat sometime." With that Wolf ducked down behind the desk and fired a couple of shots in the direction of the vulpine who ducked back around outside the doorway. O'Donnell took his moment and out the window he went, and headed across the back of the grounds picking up the box as he went.

Fox leapt out into the snow behind him the chase becoming silent other than the sound of harsh panting as Wolf tried to outrun him and also carry the heavy datastore in the cold. When O'Donnell didn't slow down at the sight of the electrified fence, Fox wondered if anyone knew what was going on at all. While he wanted to capture Wolf watching him get crispy fried by the security system wasn't entirely a thrilling prospect. "Wolf, the fence is hot!"

"Some of us actually plan these things out pup!" Was the snarled breathless reply as the mercenary leapt towards the fence, which didn't spark or send him flying, and threw himself over landing awkwardly.

The landing gave Fox the moment he needed and he flipped the setting on his blaster up a few notches with a thumb and aimed, catching Wolf's leg as his target tried to scramble away The lupine didn't reply other than with snarl and raised his own blaster without bothering to get up. The mercenary narrowed his one eye, and Fox could see he was debating whether his rival actually wanted to kill him, or not although he didn't have time to react and had nowhere to bolt for cover.

The blaster in his hand as suddenly it became absolutely unbearably hot from Wolf's shot and Fox stared at Wolf as he tossed it quickly in the snow. "Can't let you do that, Fox. I've got no more time for your pathetic games today." Wolf got to his feet despite the hit and darted off into the snowfall and forest beyond.

Fox was still staring at the blaster he'd tossed and Wolf running from him. _Why hadn't Wolf killed him? And what was so damn valuable in that stupid box?_ Krystal came up behind him "Go after him?"

"Yeah, but lets get the Arwings to do so. The snow will make tracking him hard enough I'd say lets forget going on foot. Krystal, did you get anything on what he thinks he's up to?"

"No, not really. Just a lot of emotion, I didn't have the focus to pry for thoughts. He was as shocked to see us as we were to see him. Also, you jerk. Stop trying to make me stay behind you. I am perfectly capable and competent of handling myself thank you very much! Your stupid over-protectiveness is part of why you and I aren't together and if you want met o stay on the team you're going to stop it! Now I see why Katt never would join up with you guys." Krystal's eyes were alight with anger.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. That was my fuck up. I know. It wont happen again."

"It better not." Krystal knew Fox meant well, but sometimes she wished he'd gotten a little bit more of a social clue along the way.


	3. Lost and Found

**Author note: **Thank you again to the reviewers! I'm trying to incorporate all the advice. I thought this was a good place to end this chapter though! Debating going back in time to another point in the story next, or continuing with the current bit. Probably the former, which I hope everyone finds interesting!

**July 1, 2014 Update: **Again, some expansion here trying to give some more insight into at least some of the StarFox team.

* * *

**Fichina - Day 3 - 10:24 Local Time**

Four Arwings skimmed just over the treeline, weapons armed but each of the pilots focused more on the scanners. Peppy had wanted to stay back aboard the GreatFox and keep an eye on the airspace for any sign of StarWolf leaving. "Watch your underside guys, Falco you're flying too low for the terrain ahead. Pull up."

"I know what I'm doing. Geez guys." The avian pulled up anyways, protest as he might he'd never learned to play anything safe unless he was ordered to. Fox figured that was why he was crazy enough to stay with the team. The thrill of it, despite the downsides. Having something to really do for a change made the team run smoother, and Fox realized if they were going to continue there had to be no more of this goverment lap-dog business.

"If it makes you feel any better Falco, it's not you we're worrying about, it's that expensive plane you're in" The leader snarked at his co-pilot, it was all in good humor and made long jobs go faster. That or kept his mind off weightier thoughts, like how he was going to get himself out of the position he'd _allowed_ himself to get stuck in with Corneria. That was the trouble, really, he allowed a loto f things to happen that he didn't want. It always seemed there was something he _had_ to do, or _should_ do. For the good of the team, because Pepper asked, to keep up his image as a symbol of whatever it was this week they picked out of the bag of random adjectives. Because he was _James McCloud's_ son. The list went on, although regardless of what the excuse was it all added up to the same thing.

_You're thirty for cryin out loud. Isn't it about time you stopped going along with things like the wide-eyed war hero who isn't old enough to buy a beer? Or is this going to be my entire life story, I won't be flying forever... _Fox pulled off to the right, following the grid pattern they'd laid out earlier with the help of ROB. That was just the end of it. When they got back he was going to tell Pepper that they were going solo and that unless it was a paid gig appropriate for a crew as skilled as his, it wasn't happening. No matter how many times they threw out his father's name and how disappointed James would have been that Fox wouldn't help out an "old friend".

He'd been lost in his thoughts enough he hadn't heard the comm until it was Krystal yelling at him "FOX!"

"Huh, what?" He blinked, checking his gauges again, no everything was fine there and nothing on his sensors. Shaking his head to clear the thoughts away. "What is it?"

"Peppy sees a storm forming to the east of our grid pattern. It's big enough there's no where else likely to search. He was saying we should probably head back to the GreatFox and wait for it to pass." The irritation left her voice as he heard her talk, replaecd by concern. A moment after he'd replied confirming the plan she spoke again this time on a private channel between the two ships.

"What's up with you today? You're never this distracted flying. Well, you haven't been since we were dating and in dogfights at least."

"Just, thinking. Had a few things on my mind. Thanks for getting my attention. Seems it's you whose better at looking out for me not the other way around."

"Anything you want to talk about? Slippy and Falco already headed back, we can just follow a bit slower. The storm isn't moving that fast."

"Not much to say, just me realizing I need to stop letting other people choose my direction for me. Me trying to do that for you is what ticked you off so badly when we were together, I think I get it now Krys. I'm sorry."

"I figured you didn't see it. It's okay though Fox, water under the bridge is the phrase you use no? Besides, it wouldn't have worked anyways. No, don't start up again with the apologies. It's not something you did. I just know that one day I'm going to settle down and start a family. I'm not going to want my mate flying the black when that happens, and it's everything you live for. I just didn't know you well enough to realize that when you asked me out."

"But I could ha.." He didn't get to finish the thought before she interrupted him.

"Let me choose your future? Or rather demand it from you when it's not what you wanted? Fox, what were you just saying about not letting other people dictate your life!"

"Point. You're not leaving the team now for that though are you?"

"I said someday, not now. Chill out, Fox. Although not to the extent Wolf is going to be chilling in this storm."

* * *

**Fichina Air Space - Aboard Great Fox – Day 6 – 16:30 Local Time**

Fox peered at the screens in front of him as he leaned over the console in the bridge of the Great Fox. He furrowed his eyebrows at the sensor readouts as if scowling at them would make them work better. "I've still got absolutely nothing. Check in team?"

"Nothing I can pick up" Slippy's voice came first followed by Krystal's. "Nope, no sign of him."

"Ditto. I think the asshole may have actually become an icicle in the end. Pity" The last one was Falco's voice. The shot to his shoulder hadn't even been on half power, enough to hurt and disable someone but not nearly the kind of damage they had been expecting.

Fox spun his chair to look over at Peppy. "What do we do with this old timer? We have no data box and no Wolf, but we could spend months out here looking for a body we won't find. News confirmed that Polwaski was involved in a civilian cruise line hijacking yesterday. Which makes me think Carouso was never here either. I dont know why O'Donnell would take a solo mission, but it looks like he did."

The gray hare looked thoughtful for a bit, and glanced over the maps of Fichina he'd marked various searched areas onto. "Call it off and report back. Even if it's not a total success we didn't get shot down either. There's not much else to be done." Peppy's ears drooped a bit, Fox knew it was disappointing for him to have a somewhat botched mission as the last thing they might do as a team. Fox just frowned, giving Peppy a nod and spun his chair back to the console. "Alright, pack it in guys. We're going to go back now."

There wasn't a ton of protest at the order, the rest of the team was as unsatisfied with the end as Fox was and just wanted the mission over. Part of him was relieved that his team was safe now from Star Wolf, but part of him was a little frustrated he'd never known why the lupine was always alternatingly trying to kill him or save him, or apparently disarm him instead of aiming better. The vulpine put his boots up on the console and leaned back in the chair, wondering what that had ever been about while he waited for the team to dock and started working on the paperwork he'd need to give to General Pepper.

The trip back to Corneria was uneventful, and the walk up to the General's office less than thrilling. Reporting back a mostly failed mission was never fun. The rest of the team accompanied him downtown for the meeting.

Of all the people who had lived through the Lylat War and the aparoid invasion, General Cornelius Pepper was the one who seemed to shrug it off the most. Which befuddled some of his coworkers and most of his direct reports. The two subordinates who he paid well enough outside of their official duties found the luxury that the General lived in a little more understandable. Folded hands rested on the top of the executive desk, which matched the rest of the well appointed office that had several bookshelves and several more chairs across from his own, currently filled with the members of Star Fox.

"So you can't be absolutely certain he's dead?"

It was Peppy today who was answering the questions. He was about to retire anyways, let them be angry at him. That and the old hare had enough respect from Pepper that he strongly suspected that the displeasure would be less if it was Peppy giving the news and insisting nothing more could have been done.

"Afraid not, old friend. We can confirm that in the four days since the encounter we found no trace of him or his ship. Fox here had already wounded him when he set out, and no other transmissions or sightings of the other Star Wolf members anywhere near. We know Polwaski wasn't, and there's no reason to believe Carouso was, so nobody to bail him out of trouble. Is it possible he survived? Absolutely. Is it likely? Not very." Peppy spoke with an even and calm cadence. As if it wasn't life and death they were talking about, nor as if it meant their next paycheck. Fox really admired the man for that, he could be absolutely unflappable no matter who he was dealing with.

Gen. Pepper rubbed at his forehead for a moment as if he had a headache. "Alright. The long term agreement we have with your team means you know I can't pay you full for this. That said, I'll see what I can do above expenses. " The general stood up then, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing a moment as if he was worried about something. Nodding to himself once, he pressed a button on his phone to reach his secretary looking at StarFox while he talked. "Selene, write an immediate statement for public release. Wolf O'Donnel has gone missing after stealing classified military property. The prior bounty of three million credits is revoked, to be reissued on a bounty of thirty million credits for the retrieval of said property and a kill confirmation. "

There was stunned silence in the room. Krystal was staring at Pepper with her eyes narrowed wondering what he was up to while Fox and Falco looked at each other jaw dropped. Peppy just stood there, arms folded and not reacting.

"Your team of course, is eligible for that at half-bounty as per usual. Unless you have anything else, dismissed." Pepper sat back down to begin the paperwork that would have to go through for a bounty of that size. The hound looked up though and looking at Fox. "I do have to say, I did think you'd do better on this one given who you are and all."

Fox narrowed his eyes at his long-time employer and finally put his foot down. "Yes, we didn't do perfectly this time. We also didn't royally screw it up either, and we've always done our best for you. That's who we are, and I am. That doesn't mean I'm perfect and I'm not going to apologize for failing to live up to that kind of expectation. So don't even start this with me today, or frankly ever again. If you were going to remind me I'm still the stupid war hero, I think I've _earned_ a little slack from you. And if you were going to compare me to my father again, I'm NOT him." With that he turned on his heel, the rest of the room jaw dropped and silent.

Team StarFox walked out of the office without another word and headed back for the Great Fox. The first one to speak up was Fox himself. "Guys, I think ..we need to find out what it was Wolf stole. Corneria has never issued a death only bounty on anyone. Ever."

"I think I'd like the answer to that too before I consider this all settled. That and I like the new attitude. Pepper's always been kind of manipulative that way, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to put up with it forever." The gray hare behind him commented, which made Fox grin just a little. He would be happy to keep flying with Peppy as long as he could talk the old man into it.

* * *

**Fichina - Yivii's Valley – Day 7 – 06:15 Local Time**

Wolf unfurled his stiff body, the dim light from the cave entrance up ahead reaching his eye as he poked his head out from underneath several layers of blanket, one thick cold climate rated one with a couple of special thin emergency heat retaining ones on top. He folded them away neatly and checked on first his supplies. Low enough that he'd have to book out of here soon. Secondly he checked on the blaster wound Fox had left on him several days before and was not too displeased by what he saw. Slapping down another analgesic patch over it and rewrapping it before digging out one of the antibiotics he'd been taking as a precaution from the med kit, he sighed as the pain numbed out again.

Switches flipped as he powered up the rest of the Wolfen's systems, light filling the cold cave he had hidden in now for several days. It was under enough rock and ice to hide from the scanners he knew they would have been using to search for him. He raised the landing gear and spun up the engines as much as he could in atmo, and shot out of the cave and quickly going near vertical back into the black.

Once he was back in the sky again he flipped on the comm systems and let the Finchina news station feed kick in. The only article that was there was one he had almost expected to see. Himself wanted and in the news? That was nothing new. Himself with a bounty was also nothing particularly new. Himself with a bounty ten-fold over night, and one for only a confirmed kill? That was fucking new. "Goddamnit! What the hell! I'm going to have that weasel crying for his mother before I wring his neck!"

The frustrated lupine kicked the engines into warp, claws flying over the keypad to the console as he typed in the coordinates for the one planet in the Lylat system where he might stand a chance for a few days at least. His Wolfen vanished from the Fichina sky in a blink of white light.

Wolf spent the travel time recoding the transponder signal on the Wolfen. He couldn't id as anything that he'd used before, not with a bounty that high. Altered voice and image, new code, he could pass off enough to control at the ground. Kew ground control was fairly intentional about not looking very hard as long as people paid. It wouldn't save him if anyone found out, but it would buy him time.

The Wolfen practically screamed as he brought it in fast, too fast for most pilots to have landed it safely. Most pilots didn't make it long as mercenaries either. He slowed down to something saner as he approached the hangar and set the landing gear down and quickly hopped out of the cockpit to close the large roll-down door behind him. He locked it, as well as the other door to the hallway, and grabbed the data control box from the cockpit.

After countless failed attempts, finally the physical lock that was on the blue enameled case gave and popped open. Wolf sighed, and ran the back of a hand across his forehead to get the fur out of his face. Gray paws turned over the inner casing of the lock, looking for the code name that he knew would be written there for the project the box related to. His face went absolutely ashen when he saw the neatly typed label that read "Operation SmokeOut". Tripping backwards from the table he'd been working on, Wolf stumbled looking at the box as if he'd uncovered a nuclear bomb instead.

_A setup? _The odds were pretty good at this point that in fact, that's what this whole thing had been. When the box seemed to do nothing on it's own, Wolf peered at it with his one purple eye a few moments longer before retrieving a small gray box from a hidden compartment in his Wolfen. Shaking paws unlatched the lid and set it to the side revealing the neatly organized and stored contents therein.

A small stack of dog-eared photos of a white wolf with the same purple eyes, some with him, some by herself. One with a much older, dour looking version of him with golden eyes and a missing left top fang. Wolf shuddered at the last one and quickly flipped them over. A handful of papers and letters, and a few knick knack odds and ends that he rummaged carefully through before lifting out a single, unmarked data stick.

Standard stealth-model Cornerian Military data key. Wolf held it up to the light regarding it for a moment as if it was made of crystal, and pushed the single button on the front. A small green light lit on the top and then a red one indicating it was asking for authorization. "Ember W-wolf O'Donnell." His breath caught as the red light winked out and came back on a soft blue color. He hooked up the data cord to the display on his eyepiece, and slid the datakey into the waiting encryption module. A cursor appeared in his eyepiece as text begin to scroll.

Data Key Accepted… Decryption in progress…..File Menu Decrypted…System Last Boot: 4356 days ago.…..Authorization granted. Access Level: Active Agent…:...Welcome Ember Wolf O'Donnell….

A file menu spat out underneath the text, indicating the contents of the data storage. The next few hours were spent sitting down leaning against the Wolfen, his real eye unfocused and staring towards nothing as he sifted through the information fed to him by the other.


	4. Buried In The Ashes

**Author's note:** Again, many thanks for the encouragement of the reviewers! I wil be going back at some point quite soon to rework things as people have suggested, but for now a new chapter! I'm not sure how many chapters will be in the past before we get back to the present, but I'm trying to avoid hopping around too much and make each section a little longer.

**July 1, 2014 Update:** Small changes in the existing sections to match earlier changes. Added a section in the Academy between Fox and Wolf.

* * *

_"Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red."_- William Manchester

**Corneria City - Slums - 7 Years Before the Lylat War**

"Ember". The low warning growl was better than he usually got, causing the young lupine to freeze in his tracks as his ears rotated towards the old, grizzled wolf behind him. The teenaged boy could feel the yellow eyes staring at him, watching every motion he made, and he tried hard to stay perfectly still. His thoughts raced through everything he'd done today or yesterday, trying to figure out what he had screwed up so he could apologize and try to avoid his father's ire. Ember Wolf O'Donnell came up empty handed for things he could apologize for readily. He never was able to figure out ahead of time what he had screwed up, no matter how hard he tried.

His father let out a long, irritated sigh, before pulling out a wallet that was more duct tape than wallet at this point and offered out a ten credit note. "Go down to Rick's and get me a pack of smokes, and something for you and your sister to eat." Pierce O'Donnell watched his son with a measure of distrust as he stepped over and took the note. The moment the boy had it in his hand, he found his collar grabbed by the older wolf and drug so that his muzzle was only an inch away from his father's. Wide purple eyes looked back into bloodshot yellow ones, fear written all over the boy's face. A wiry thin arm, covered with scars, held the young wolf in place with a strength that was terrifying to the boy. "I expect you to hurry, and I expect you to come straight back. Now get gone." Ember nearly tripped as Pierce let go of his collar and he hurried to go, the small act of clumsiness bringing more of a scowl to the older O'Donnell's face.

The door of the small apartment in the dilapidated building was hard not to let slam, but Ember tried anyways. Down the stairs with the rusted and wobbly railing, into the lobby with the broken boarded up windows and out onto the street where it was not quite sunset. Graffiti littered most of the walls and good number of signs and posters here. The street itself was far from quiet, as many other people were either hurried on errands or a few groups just standing around watching and up to nothing anyone wanted to know about. On maps the neighborhood was called Taubert. Anyone who was familiar with it called it the Den, nicknamed for the fact it was both full of unsavory activities and populated by those who most of Corneria associated with it. Weasels and rats made up the majority of the population here, although there was a smattering of wolves, tigers and reptiles who also called the slum home.

The lanky young wolf hurried down the street to a small store on the corner, whose long-unlit sign declared it to be Rick's, which was also the name of the raccoon who was behind the counter. He quickly grabbed a few things, cheap food that he know he could make and would go farther given the small amount of money he had. A box of dry pasta, some sauce, a loaf of bread, and an apple which was Lyra's favorite that he had enough coins to pay for himself. It was all dumped on the counter unceremoniously and the ten note offered out. "Need a pack for da too."

Rick nodded, it might have been against the law to sell them to the man's son instead of him, but he really didn't want trouble with the old drunkard. That and he also knew it would be Ember who caught the brunt of it if he refused anyways, and while Rick may not have been a nice man he wasn't a particularly cruel one. "Sure thing kid." He tossed the cigarettes in on top of the rest in the bag. "Say hi to your sister for me."

"Yeah. Sure. Thanks." Ember wasn't really fond of talking to people, it wasn't particularly easy or frankly worth his while. He took the bag and hurried back, taking the steps three at a time despite the lack of railing. A snarl came from Pierce, who muttered about how slow the pup was but wasn't followed by an actual tirade. Ember handed his father the cigarettes and set the rest down in the kitchen, grabbing the apple from the bag and headed towards the room he and his sister shared.

He found the pixie-framed girl sitting on the floor, with a crayon and a sheet of paper and completely absorbed in her drawing. He smiled as he crouched down, "Hey powder-puff, I got you somethin." Purple eyes and a black nose that were the only coloring on the female wolf, all of her fur as white as snow, looked back at him wrinkled up in distaste of the nickname. Eight years younger than her brother, she looked like the spitting image of the mother she'd never known. A fact that drove Pierce up the wall, but spared her from the worst of his temper, usually redirected back onto her brother.

"I'm not powder-puff." She folded her arms and pouted at him.

"Yeah yeah. You keep saying that and it still doesn't mean you look less like one." He teased his sister a bit, mostly because he thought it was hilarious when she tried to scowl and mostly just looked ridiculous. "But I still got you somethin." He held out the apple for her, and she instantly grabbed in with a grin and was already chowing down on it before she mumbled a thank you around it. Ember smiled and ruffled the his sister's short white hair which she immediately tried to swat his hand away and smooth back.

She pointed at the paper and offered it up to him, on it was a crude drawing of a plane, with a gray stick figure with ears and purple eyes waving from the cockpit. Ember smiled and took it, carefully folding it and putting it in his pack pocket. "Got that right powder-puff. One day you and I are gonna fly right outta this place."

"EMBER!" The angry yell came from the living room and he cringed, before darting back. "What the hell? Put the damn groceries away too boy! I know half-ass should have been your middle name but try for a change not to live up to the notion!" Pierce was already up and had a smoke in his mouth and a beer in one hand while he hit Ember on the back of the head with the other. "Idiot."

The rest of the night was downhill from there, before it was over Ember was sporting a black eye and a split lip. Not that anyone in this neighborhood who overheard cared, they had their own problems to worry about.

**Lylat Flight Academy - 3 Years Before the Lylat War**

Ember wasn't sure how he was going to pay for next semeter's tuition, but he had far more pressing concerns. It wasn't that he didn't understand the material in his electronics class, it was that he had no time to do the work for it. The aspiring pilot reached for the mug of coffee beside him, trying to make sense of the diagram lines and formulas that accompanied them. Given the exam was that afternoon, he didn't hold a lot of hope for pulling his grade in the class out of the gutter. The only classes he was doing well in were the actual flying classes. Although his instructors didn't care for him he'd more than once had them grumble about "natural talent with a cocky attitude". Speaking of which, it was almost six thirty in the morning so he better get off his duff and get there if he didn't want another mark for being late.

He grabbed his bag, shoving the books in it and made a sandwich that he threw in as well. He also made another and put an apple with it for Lyra and went to go wake the little girl up. His father could fend for himself as far as Ember cared. The small white wolf yawned and grinned at him land started getting ready for her own day. "Don't miss the bus, your lunch is in the fridge. I'll get home around seven and I'll bring dinner so don't bother dad about it okay?" She nodded and he ruffled her hair and darted out the door into the same slum he'd always lived in.

Over a fence and through some shortcuts he'd rather not have taken, he managed to get to the city bus stop just in time to dart on as the doors closed and shove a student pass in the driver's face. "Sit down already then kid, I got a schedule to run." Ember didn't reply and just sat down catching his breath.

At seven-fourty he darted out at the stop in front of the flight academy, bolting past a group of freshmen girls who were all giggling about something. He managed to slide into his desk at seven-fifty and that gave him a couple of minutes to try and look like he hadn't just run in. The husky who was their instructor walked in a couple of moments later, a red furred fox with white markings behind him. "I'm afraid we don't allow students to exam into the senior level flight class, but that just means that the junior level one should be a cakewalk for you. Try not to show off about that though, if you could. I've already got one troublemaker as it is." The middle-aged man who still sported a military crew cut shot a glare at O'Donnell.

The fox looked down "Um, yeah, sure. I wasn't planning to." He seemed shy, really. Ember thought he looked familiar but couldn't place him. Whatever, the lupine was far more interested in finding out just how good or not this guy was to be placing into the same class as him as a freshman. Other students began to filter in and once attendance was taken Ember realized why the newcomer looked familiar. McCloud, shit, that was James McClouds' _son._

The husky, Mr. Rivan, at the front of the class continued. "Alright, line up and file out, we haven't got all morning. I want to see all of you in your gear and lined up on the tarmac in ten minutes. Now move it." It didn't even take ten, most of the students had the sense to just wear their gear to attendance and book it to the lined up old planes.

The old planes, and the brand new Arwing that was sitting there. Ember had to stop himself from going over and drooling on the thing. It outclassed the old beat up fighters the academy used in every way possible. Mr. Rivan walked out in front of it "I'm sure you all know what this is, and I'm sure you all want to fly it. That said, it's on loan for the rest of the semester. Obviously only one of you will get to fly it, which will be by week. That will be determined by who does best in the old fighters each Monday and hasn't yet had a turn. Today's drill is defensive maneuvers, usual order. McCloud, that means you fly next to O'Donnell as the last pair.

Ember scowled, he didn't like the idea of being shown up by the new kid no matter who he was, and waited while the other students each took their turns in the old fighters, outfitted with a remote control that Rivan could assume if needed. Most of the class could clumsily pull through the expected moves, a few managed to completely flub one or another but nobody was bad enough at this level to not know when to abort one and just fail it instead of getting themselves in trouble.

Everyone shut up and watched though when McCloud took to the air, Ember right on his heels. For a junior, McCloud would have been impressive, for a freshman he was freaking fantastic. The lupine scowled, he could do everything this brat could do and just as well if not better and for once found himself actually challenged to prove it. When Fox pulled a clumsy, but still complete barrell roll, O'Donnell took his change. He did his own, far tighter and neater and arched over McCloud's ship at the same time before they both pulled back onto the asphalt.

Mr. Rivan looked furious, and Fox stepped out of his Arwing with his ears low and tail tucked. The vulpine was expecting to get railed out for not doing as well as they thought he would, and certainly not as well as his father had in the same class. Ember hopped down grinning like a madman and caring not in the least how ticked off their teacher was at his little stunt.

"When I said who does best, I did not mean pull idiotically dangerous stunts O'Donnell! If McCloud had pulled up at the wrong moment you'd both be dead!"

"Er, I did see him." The timid voice of the vulpine was barely audible.

Riven blinked and looked taken aback. "Of course, you would have noticed. I wasn't meaning to imply you wouldn't. Still, that's no excuse O'Donnell. I better never catch you pulling shit like that again in my class. I ought to let McCloud take the new ship out instead given your lack of respect for the rules."

Ember growled, lowly, his ears going flat. Sure it was true, but there's no way McCloud would have been that stupid so it had been fine. Everyone was always telling him to apply himself anyways! He bit his tounge, knowing that nothing he said at this point would possibly help him.

"Mr. Rivan, it's...fine. Let someone else take it, please. He did do the roll I didn't pull off completely and I've already um, flown an Arwing. " Fox was scratching behind an ear and looking nervous. He really didn't want people to hate him, or be upset with him. He just never seemed to manage to live up entirely to their expectations. That and he really didn't want O'Donnell to hate him. The guy looked like he could break somebody's neck before breakfast and then have a bowl of cereal as if nothing had happened.

The flight instructor scowled, and then looked over the students and sighed. "Fine. Fine. I can't believe I'm doing this but O'Donnell, you get the Arwing for the rest of the week. If you step out of line once in that ship though, which is worth more than you can fathom, I will have you tossed out of this school before you can blink. You ought to thank McCloud for convincing me."

Ember didn't say anything, he was too busy biting his tounge and keeping his fists at his side. Pity was not what he wanted, he'd bested everyone fair and square!

Fox blanched, this wasn't what he'd wanted at all, and he met the glare of the older student for a moment before he looked down. For the rest of the year, everything he did O'Donnell was trying to outclass him, and Fox doing his damnedest to not be outclassed and prove he could live up to his name.

**Corneria City - Gen. Peppers Office - 2 Years Before the Lylat War**

General Pepper sifted through the stack of files on his desk, each one with a name and photo id clipped to the front. The first three candidates had been disasters. One couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag and had tried, more than once to do so anyways. The other two might have worked, except for the fact they had failed the pilot aptitude test with such poor scores that they'd never get a ship off the ground on their own. He rapped his fingers against the desk, he knew what he was wanting would be hard to find, but he'd hoped to at least hit the mark closer.

Then again, it was asking a lot to get ahold of someone who could fly, and someone who could lie well enough to not get caught, by either Andross or the rest of the Cornerian government, was tolerable enough on paper *and* he could get enough leverage on to make sure that this never saw the light of day if it came to that. Corneria needed a more...ideal view of it's leaders, and Pepper was loathe to disillusion them. Being respected, if not liked by the populace had serious advantages with the Senators who supposedly ruled Corneria. Not that he had anything but Corneria's best interests in mind, as he always had. It was simply in Corneria's best interest for him to be in charge, was how he thought of it.

Ostensibly the interview itself on most of the paperwork was for some small training project to see if they couldn't use otherwise unsuitable pilots for various support duties. All of the real information Pepper had gathered and had to keep copies of was stored encrypted apart from the rest of the militaries network. Top secret of course. Security reasons. If you had clearance of course he'd tell you all the details. Not that hardly anyone had clearance. No, he kept records of all of the agreements with the Senate members, as well as some other choice material to leverage which he was always happy to remind them of whenever these little projects arose if they protested. The stakes for this were low anyways. What was the life of one teenager in the grand scheme? Not much.

His secretary, a feline named Shara, who had learned that keeping her mouth shut for her boss meant a far more livable salary than most of the administrative staff got, let him know over the direct line to his office that the fourth candidate was here.

Ember Wolf O'Donnell strolled into the office when the door was opened as if he owned the place. His purple gaze fixed on Pepper, looking at the man as if he was an ordinary management type, not the head General of all of Corneria. "Huh. Didn't think you did interviews for training spots." The wolf towered over Pepper, wearing black boots and a black muscle shirt over faded jeans. He was taller and far larger than the general, with not a bit of the desk-job pudge.

Pepper raised an eyebrow, the lack of respect from the eighteen year old was offputting, to say the least. "I do today. That's Sir, or General Pepper to you by the way. Take a seat" He motioned to the small chair in front of his desk as he took his own much nicer chair and flipped open Wolf's file.

"Ember O'Donnell. I'd ask if you know how to fly but I already know the answer to that. Your scores from the flight academy are impressive, your lack of ability to pass the other subjects significantly less so." He looked at the lupine, as if leaving space open for apologies or excuses.

"It's Wolf. Nobody calls me that that, _Sir._ Haven't gone by it since they threw me out. Never liked it." The distaste for the authority dripped off of Wolf's voice, and there was no apology or excuse forthcoming. He'd long since learned that apologies made you sound weak, and excuses were even worse. That and nobody wanted to hear the reason you missed yesterday's final was taking care of your sick sister, or your hungover father, or whatever it was this week. He narrowed his eyes at Pepper, as if expecting the man to call security on him just for disagreeing.

"Alright. Wolf. So, why are you applying for a training position?" Pepper already knew the answer why, he knew it for each of the candidates before they walked in. But he wanted to see what they would say, and how well they would say it if it wasn't truth.

"Because you need someone to show that the idea of having non Flight Academy pilots works at all. I having failed out, prove a point. For whatever you'd like to use that point for. By their standards, I'm a failure. As a pilot, I'm a fuckin' ace. I'm better than any of these other assholes you've had walk in through the door, and you and I both know it. That you even called me in here, tells me that you don't care that I have a record. Meaning it's probably not actually training you're hiring for. So just call me curious, _Sir._" Wolf folded his arms in the chair, leaning back on the back two legs and grinning smugly at the last bit. Even if he was wrong, he didn't care. He knew these stuck up jerks weren't going to hire him, if not for any of the reasons on paper but because of _what_ he was too. Poor lupine scum, crawled in from the neighboring Ervi system, whose star was dying. Truthfully, he was here only on the slim chance they might actually hire him because if he could get a job and earn some money, maybe he could get somewhere better. Lyra somewhere better. Hope was more dangerous and addictive the any drug he'd ever seen, he hadn't been able to stay away but Wolf wasn't going to let himself even think that it _could_ really work out.

The General regarded the angry lupine before him, rubbing a hand on his chin as he thought. The kid was quick on the uptake, that was for sure, and it wasn't a bad answer. It wasn't the truth, but if Pepper hadn't already known that Wolf and his sister were in less than grand circumstances, he wouldn't have wagered the purple-eyed lupine before him even had a family. "I'll give you that much, it's not training. No. But to find out what the rest of it really is, there's a lot of things you have to agree to first. Like joining the military, albeit under my supervision. Not telling anyone what we speak about, doing otherwise would in fact mark you a traitor to the entire system. While I wont require it, it would be for the best if you didn't have contact with anyone you care about after a point. It would put both them, and you, in danger."

Wolf felt like someone had just kicked him in the stomach, not contact anyone he cared about? It wouldn't have been hard, except for the one person alive in the world he actually did care about. The notion of abandoning Lyra was enough to make him sick. "No Deal." He had known it was a bad idea to come here, and that it wouldn't work out. He just hated to have proven himself right again. The lupine stood up, ears flattened out sideways from his head for a moment before he noticed they were and they popped back up as if nothing in the world bothered him. "I'll get out of here since we're both wasting each others time and breath."

Pepper watched for a moment, taken aback. Nobody had ever walked out on him like that since he'd made General. Heck, since two ranks below his current position nobody had dared do that. Part of him was angry at the lack of respect, but the more calculating part of his mind realized just how much leverage he could possibly have over this pilot. That was more than sufficiently useful to overlook the unpleasant personality (that could come in handy too, frankly), and the criminal record that was already in the system. Petty theft, disturbing the peace, a small slew of minor things that were well below what was expected from those in Flight Academy, but nothing serious enough that a good few bribes couldn't erase officially. "Wait a moment, there, Mr. O'Donnell'

Wolf paused, and turned his head back around, both purple eyes watching the General as if convinced this was going to end badly.

"That doesn't mean that the people you can't talk to, don't benefit from this arrangement. If that's your concern." There was a disarming smile on the old dog's face, one that didnt relay any of his less than altruistic thoughts. "I'm going to imagine you're worried about that younger sister of yours. Suffice to say, if you agreed to this, I"m sure we could work out a pay arrangement that includes her well-being."

The lupine froze, weighing his options and the look on the General's face. "Keep talkin, I'm listening... Sir." He narrowed his eyes at Pepper, wanting to bolt and be rid of the man altogether as something told him this really wasn't going to end well. Except then he'd have to go home and look at Lyra and tell her that he'd had something, and turned it down.

"That's better my boy. Much better. We can be reasonable men about this. I"m not the sort to encourage you to abandon your family, not entirely. You just wouldn't be able to contact them yourself, really for everyone's good. The other terms are as I said. I really do have to have your agreement to follow through and silence on the matter though for any other details."

With that, Ember Wolf O'Donnell said the few words that would change his path, and the path of everyone around him, forever. "Alright, I'm in, Sir."


	5. Everybody Has A Secret

**Authors Note:** Ya'll have no idea how much it makes me absolutely thrilled that other people are enjoying this story as much as I've enjoyed it rattling around my head and trying to get it down on paper. I confess, I do want to go back and edit prior chapters, but I'm too excited about finishing the flashback chapters first, of which there are several. Past events play a big part in this story. I'm trying to get a gauge of how big this may wind up being and at my current estimate of how much of my plot notes equal a chapter I'm guessing around 18 chapters total, but I could be really off. Either way, here we go!

Apologies for the delay- somehow about 1500 words got lost, and I had to write it again, which was significantly harder than writing it the first time somehow. I also don't think i wrote it as well the second time (I don't get it either). I"m not entirely happy with this chapter, but I feel like I just need to be done with it to get it out and maybe I'll revise it later. The next one should have a lot more action!

**July 1, 2014 Update: **A few small additions here at the end, trying to get a better idea of James' personality

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_"__Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret." - Jean De La Fontaine_

**Corneria City Base - War Room 5A - 18 Months Before the Lylat War**

The room reserved in the base for this side project of Peppers was small, but well appointed with the newer holo screens and projectors. Wolf sat in one of three chairs in the room that were for the selected individuals in the program. To his left sat a male tiger, who even sitting towered over the other two recruits. On the other side of the tiger in the tiny room, a female rat was tapping her claws against her arm rest. All three of them would have stood out like sore thumbs if they were seen in public with any of the rest of the Cornerian Defense members, but only Wolf even had a reason to want to leave the base. Originally there had been ten of them chosen, agreeing to trade their previous lives for a chance at something more. The more just happened to be a wide range of assignments that were all heavily classified, all putting people who reported to Pepper in various positions. Today they would find out which one of those positions the remaining members of the program would fill and details on their assignments.

The past six months were a blur of training. Some of it piloting, some of it combat, but the rest had been more esoteric things. How to avoid lie detectors, spot the subtle taste of poison or drugs if it was in food or drink, to blend in with society both high and low. No-one in the program had been too shabby at all of them, in fact most were pretty good at at least a couple of them. Of the ten original recruits, four had been unable to pass some portion of the training with high enough marks. One had proven a violent wild card, and had seriously injured another recruit during a spar. Both were dropped from the program, the former tossed out entirely and the latter redirected into a less secretive and demanding program, well, once she was able to stand again she would be. The only other lupine of the group, a black furred fellow named Peng, had been killed trying to prove himself as a hot shot pilot, attempting to pull the same maneuvers he had seen Wolf manage without realizing his fellow recruit was both a natural and had almost finished Flight Academy.

Wolf hadn't really bothered to learn much about them, none of them had beyond names. They all knew they would be split up at the end of training and if they saw each other again outside of these walls, they were to pretend they had never met. They came called for the recruits one at a time. Wolf was the last of the three, hoping that whatever it was they had him doing it involved a lot of flying. Flying was the only time he felt free, the only time he felt happy other than the brief evenings he shared with Lyra. Tonight he'd say goodbye to her, so it was down to just flying. Part of him felt extremely guilty over leaving her, he was eighteen but she was only thirteen. The alternative was staying and they starved, or moved back in with Pierce and he wasn't sure which was worse. The family that Pepper had arranged to foster her was, disturbingly normal and nice, if a little edgy around Wolf. They feared him for some reason, maybe because he looked the part or maybe they feared Pepper would..would what? He shook his head, it was better anyways. He could have survived on the streets, but Lyra was far more frail. Just like their mother who had not survived leaving their original home. Wolf mulled over all of those memories as he sat and waited, it was better than pacing waiting to find out what the next several years of his life would be like.

When he finally heard his name he stood up and followed the assistant, brushing aside the thoughts, and the nervousness. The only expression anyone would read off of him was the slightly angry glower that had become his default. He followed them down the halls to the General's office, a spot he hadn't seen since the first day he had arrived here. "Have a seat." Pepper half asked, half ordered, which Wolf did so immediately. A folder was thrust at him which Wolf took and opened glancing at the first few pages and scanning them while he listened. "I have reason to believe that a criminal exiled to Venom, may have actually survived. The name Dr. Andross is likely familiar to you. Your longer term assignment is partially contingent on whether that is true. If it was not, you will find a backstory in your folder that explains why you are there. You will join him, and keep tabs on him and report back to me as you can, details of how and the encryption tools you will need will be issued to you before departure. If it was, you will bring back proof. I have reason to believe that you will wind up staying there, but another assignment awaits you here if not. If you are discovered, we disavow all knowledge of you and there will be no rescue team. Otherwise you are to remain embedded there until we retrieve you or indicate otherwise. Do you understand?"

Wolf nodded once, not sure what to think of the assignment itself.

"Any questions?"

"Lyra stays where she is regardless of outcome, yes?"

Pepper gave Wolf a sympathetic look, inwardly amused at how easy manipulating the lupine across the table would be. "Yes, regardless of outcome. Anything else?"

"No, Sir."

"Then dismissed. Your effects to take on the trip will be delivered to your room at 05:00 tomorrow, you depart at 06:00. Good Luck." With that Pepper gave him a nod and turned back to the papers on his desk as Wolf left the room.

The assistant who had brought them in looked over at Pepper with a raised eyebrow. "Sir?"

"Yes, I know. An actual mission of value to Corneria, perhaps Lylat, at large, while the other two are being more politically useful. No point in ruling an empire if you aren't going to keep it safe." Pepper didn't look up from his papers. That was the trouble with most of his subordinates. Those he could be sure of their loyalty to him, generally also were a little power hungry or liked the perks that came with. Not that he didn't, but he was firmly convinced that things were better left in his own hands than those of the Senate. Seizing the power to manage to keep Corneria safe had come at a price to the integrity of the system, and benefited him on the side, but both were completely acceptable in his book. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, or so the saying went. "Besides, of the three remaining recruits, he is the one who scored most likely to take issue with what we do politically. Let him get a good view of how things really are and what our enemies are like and that becomes far less of a problem."

**Venom - Andross' Base - 15 Months Before the Lylat War**

It was never actually quiet in Andross' military complex. There was no telling daylight from reflected light in the toxic haze that formed a thick greenish-gray blanket over the entire planet. As a result the entire facility ran on four overlapping shifts that spanned the 26-hour local day. Various species and sizes of lizard scurried down the hallways, almost all of them wearing the same black uniform and badges indicating relatively low rank on their chest and shoulders. One green reptile who strode down the hallway wore a much higher badge of rank upon a flight suit, as did Wolf who was beside him as they went towards the hangar for their next patrol.

Leon Powalski was one of the two people on the entire planet of Venom who actually unnerved Wolf. The other was Andross himself. Both of them were absolutely insane, but Wolf didn't have to deal with their leader directly on a day to day basis. The psychopath he called a team member was the person who he saw the most of. It wasn't that Leon was annoying, even though he surely was, it was the man's utter glee at torture and violence that bothered the lupine. Originally he thought it might have been an overblown reputation, given Leon was in charge of dealing with all prisoners and most punishments. Wolf had learned it was absolute truth when he'd had to remain when one of the mechanics under him nearly got them all killed. Just remembering it was enough to make Wolf want to be ill, he gave a sideways glance to Leon making sure the man was never actually behind him. After watching what Leon called punishment, Wolf had made it a clear policy that mistakes weren't tolerated in those who reported to him, and he enforced it with a temper and violence that had become his own reputation. Better a few black eyes at the hands of the lupine than a day with Leon, was his going theory.

"Going to actually manage to shoot someone down today, oh fearless leader?" Leon asked, catching the glance his way although chalking the narrowed eyes up to Wolf's well known poor disposition towards, well, everyone.

"As if you've taken down anyone in the pieces of junk we have for ships." Wolf snarled back, showing just enough fang in his grin to make the lizard snicker nervously. He hadn't noticed that the violence that had started out as an act to avoid worse things, had turned into his standard way of reacting.

The ships they were heading to, were anything but grand. Andross kept promising through his nephew Andrew that new ones were "in development". As it stood however, they might have competed well against the slowest fighters the Cornerian fleet had - five years ago.

"I'll be first, dog-breath. Andrew promised me dibs on the first one." Leon grinned smugly at Wolf as they walked into the hangar, a couple of maintenance crew quickly scattering.

"You wanna be the first man flying an untested ship? You be my guest. I hope you learned how to breathe without air." Wolf remarked as he hoisted himself up and into the cockpit of a black ship with the name "Defiance" stenciled on the wing.

"You're just jealous. You know you wish you were me." The lizard stopped to admire his own reflection on the glass of his own ship.

"Shut up Leon."

"Such a cute widdle angry wuff." Leon never knew when to quit. Wolf just shut the cockpit and ignored him. While he had a moment of privacy not in the air, pulled the data stick hidden in the collar of his jacket and shoved it into the port he had wired up underneath the main control stick. He'd reprogrammed the ship sensors to turn the port on if anything Cornerian buzzed by, and broadcast the encrypted data within on low-frequency channels that apparently Pepper had dictated installed into every ship that landed or was made on Corneria. They would all pick it up and record the data for later retrieval. It was an iffy way of communicating, but it was about the only way to achieve it, and it worked. Wolf had gotten two short replies back acknowledging at least a handful of the sendings had gotten through. If someone else saw the signal it would be picked up as static.

"Whatever, bug breath. Either the long range sensors are on the fritz again or something just came into Section 3B. I'm going to go find out." Wolf growled under his breath and headed for the outskirts of the airspaced they watched, fervently wishing that someone would shoot that damn lizard down.

Hours later, Wolf's boots hit solid ground again as he re-entered the base. He gave a longing glance to the hangar door, flying was still freedom of a sort and he hated coming back here. He might have stood there for several more moments had Andrew not buzzed his earpiece. "Oh good, you're back on base. Is Leon still out?"

"Yeah, he's still out, Should be back within ten. Why?"

"We found another group of natives who wanted to play resistance. Uncle would like both of you to come show them why that's a bad idea by making an example of their leaders. You'll have an audience so make it good."

Wolf didn't reply, one wasn't needed or required. He choked down the feeling of disgust and waited long enough for Leon to join him before going to sell another piece of his soul in exchange for keeping his cover.

**Corneria City - Space Dynamics - Aboard The Great Fox - 12 Months Before The Lylat War**

Blue eyes hidden behind large sunglasses took in the screens and chairs of the brand new bridge with admiration. James McCloud ran a hand over the ship controls, pleased with the progress on the ship. Soon enough it would be ready and a great aid to Star Fox, even if the bank note was large enough that he didn't want to think about it. "Such a shame that it wont be ready for the next mission." The vulpine remarked to the hare who was his senior that was in the doorway to the bridge.

"We'll fly it next time James, have some patience. I'm shocked they're this far along." Peppy leaned against the doorway.

"I know, I know. At least the latest upgrades to the Arwings are ready." The gleeful tone in the fox's voice was hard to miss.

"As long as they got the stability issue sorted I'm happy." Peppy shook his head. If he hadn't known James so well he would have assumed the other man to be much younger and less experienced than he was. "So excited over your new toys as always."

"C'mon old man, can you blame me?" James laughed, and retied the red scarf he was wearing. It had been a gift from his late wife, several years ago and noone had seen him without it since.

"No, but I'd hope I'd be excited if I spent that much." James clapped a hand on Peppy's shoulder, thoroughly amused even if the hare was mostly serious.

"Right right, well, why dont you go make a final check on your Arwing and I'll be along shortly? I want to call my kid before we leave. He's got finals and graduation coming up, or supposedly anyways."

Peppy rolled his eyes. "Don't stress him out about it. He's not the rascal you are James. Last I knew he'd busting his tail trying to live up to what everyone thinks you are. They seem to have forgotten that your flight scores and programming classes were the only ones you didn't pass by the skin of your teeth because you were too busy pulling pranks and chasing girls."

James sighed, he knew it was true and he wished it wasn't. "Yeah, I know. Kids gotta learn to find his own direction sooner or later. I wish he would go off and get into some trouble, He's too quiet, has been ever since..well, you know."

The more senior member of the team nodded. James didn't really talk about his late wife and nobody else did either. "He'll be okay, I was just saying..you get what I was saying. I'm gonna go have dinner with my wife and daughter before we leave."

"Say hi to Vivian and Lucy for me." Once the hare was outside, James called his son, chatted for a few minutes and then pulled up the new console and started typing away, he'd seen something in the specs that seemed odd to him and wanted to check. He found what he was looking for not too long after he started searching for it. There were extra frequency channels that had been added to the ship, and data encryption software that was clearly military based once he got into it far enough to look.

He narrowed his eyes and lifted his sunglasses up for a moment while he typed away. Just what was Pepper up to these days? Too many odd things were going on with the military for him not to notice anymore. James hadn't shared his suspicions, but he wasn't sure he trusted the General anymore.


	6. Fading Light

**A****uthor's Notes: **I realize I've gone back to a shorter chapter with this one, please forgive me. I just felt like I really wanted to end the chapter here, as the next chapter will largely be focused on another character. I'm hoping people are still enjoying the story. Please do throw me a review, I'm very interested in figuring out what to change in my writing.  
Also, hopefully the combat is more clear in this chapter than it was in chapter 3 (at least till the rewrite). If not, I do want to know and I"ll probably try to rewrite both soon.  
**July 4, 2014 Update:** Formatting fixes. Added a scene at the end with Fox.

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"_War does not determine who is right - only who is left." - Bertrand Russell_

**Venom Airspace - 12 Months Before The Lylat War**

"Are you seriously ignoring _me_?" A green hand waved in front of Wolf's face in front of his nose which startled him. A blaster was drawn and pointed at Leon before the lupine even thought about it. Leon might have been an arrogant psychopath, but he wasn't suicidal. "Whoa. Easy." He held up his hands and took a step back. "Venom to Wolf, care to come back from outer space?"

"Oh go fucking rot Leon. You know better than to startle a guy with a gun. What the hell are you doing in my room anyways?" Wolf growled under the words, tucking the blaster back in it's holster.

"Looking for you. Andrew wants us both in the hangar. Latest changes to the new ships and he wants us to test them out. You didn't answer the comm so he sent me to find you. Job far beneath somebody as important as me but who argues with the monkey?" The lizard was giving Wolf a funny look.

Wolf blinked, reaching to remove the earpiece that held the comm unit, and peered at it. No it was on, how had he not heard it? He shook his head and put it back into place and tapped it once. "Wolf here, on my way."

A whiney voice came back through the earpiece "About fucking time. A spy of ours just reported that there were three Arwings headed towards Venom. I was just about to raise the alarm."

Arwings, that meant team StarFox. It also meant Wolf's ticket out of here. He zipped up his jacket, a a hand touching where the hidden data stick was stored to make sure it was there. It was full of war plans and designs, sneaked out from Andrew's nose who was too busy bragging about his latest designs and inventions to notice that Wolf had been copying them while he'd been reviewing them. The last thing he had heard back from General Pepper was that he was to follow the next Cornerian ships that ventured this far. That had been two months ago.

Wolf hopped into the as-yet-unnamed ship and started turning on all the systems, while Leon did the same as the base itself became an explosion of activity moments after the red lights and alarm screeches started. He rather hoped that he'd get to take the lizard down on his way out, or maybe James McCloud would. If there was anyone famous who Wolf looked up to, it was a pilot like that. It was James who had inspired him to try for Flight Academy in the first place.

Leon's ship took off into the sky above Venom, but Wolf heard the whine of his engines as if they were about to kick in and then… wind back down. "What the hell?" He checked the diagnostic panel which showed nothing and hit the switch again. Nothing but a click of the switch itself. "DAMNIT!" He slammed a fist into the console.

The sensor system was still on and showed three ships that came just into range. Wolf was still cussing and getting out to inspect the ship when the open-channel on the comm made his blood run cold and kept his attention captive on what he could tell of the fight from the displays in his ship.

"Heh. Heh. So, it's been fun flying with you StarFox, but Andross pays better!" The words were followed by giddy laughter, as one of the three Arwings turned to aim at it's own comrades.

Everything happened too fast from that point, the battle had been won before it really began. Leon was shooting at one of the two remaining StarFox members, Pigma Dengar at the other and Wolf was damnably still on the ground. The element of surprise had cost StarFox dearly, both Arwings hit before they had a chance to dodge. James' ship was far more damaged, barely limping along from the smart-bombs that Pigma had dropped nearly on top of him.

Wolf's headset was filled with the shouts of anger and betrayal from James McCloud and Peppy Hare, and snorts of amusement from Pigma while he shot at his former leader. Leon was giving Peppy a hell of time. Wolf had his sights locked on Pigma at this point, determined to get out of here, when Leon came over the comm. "Where the hell are you Wolf? Oh screw it we don't need you anyways! Hey Peppy, don't run! I was just starting to have fun!"

Damnit. Damnit. _Damnit._

Peppy had redirected most of the power from his damaged Arwing to the engines and was outrunning Leon at this point. McCloud's Arwing had also redirected power in a similar manner, but it was obvious he was flying blind in some manner as he was headed straight for the one part of Venom airspace nobody sane went. The lights that displayed the severely damaged Arwing to Wolf went dark as he watched the best pilot in the entire system, somehow fly straight into the gravitational pull of the singularity that had been created during one of Andross' weapon tests. "James?" The hares voice came, and all of the com lines got quiet, as no response came. "Damnit. I'm sorry James." The beaten Arwing peeled off and headed back the way it had come.

"Grr. Come back here you coward!" Leon shouted over the com, still trying to chase the Arwing down.

"Whoops, guess that little tweak to James' steering wasn't such a great idea after all." Pigma was already chortling and clearly quite pleased with himself, and Wolf threw down his headset in disgust and kicked the side of his ship. He narrowed his eyes, seeing motion on the other side of the hangar.

There was a black-furred lupine who stepped back, taller and leaner than Wolf, dressed in an identical flight suit. Wolf was confused but bared his fangs in a snarl. "What the hell?" Xander led the team on the opposite shift to his own, why was Xander docking with the ships engines?

"Oh, why doesn't your ship work? I know why you're here. Don't deny it, I have proof. I'm was getting pieces from the old ships this morning and found some really interesting modifications to the comm system in yours." The other pilot was smug as he pulled out a blaster. "I'm going to get a nice, big, bonus for turning your tail in."

Wolf didn't reply, he just launched at the other lupine who wasn't expecting it, the first shot going wild and the blaster being tossed across the room before a second shot could be fired, and tackled his saboteur to the ground. Xander fought back hard, what had originally been an attack over money was now a fight to survive between both wolves. They kicked and clawed at each other, each trying to pin the other one down and each taking the opportunity to slam a fist into his opponent when it was there. Wolf was heavier but his opponent was faster, which left them nearly evenly matched.

Xander kicked Wolf off of him, slamming the grey-furred pilot into one of the mechanics' tool chests sending some of the contents crashing to the floor. Out of the corner of his vision the black wolf saw an opportunity and grabbed one of the large utility blades from the top drawer and he attempted to stab the other pilot. Wolf managed to twist away enough to duck being stabbed in the chest, only to howl in agony as the blade caught his face instead and suddenly he couldn't see anything on his left side. Wolf dove for the blaster that had been left on the floor as Xander managed to sink the knife deep into Wolf's thigh before finding himself nose to muzzle with the gun.

The sound of laser fire was the last thing Xander heard before his body slumped to the floor instantly, brown eyes staring out into nothingness as black fur stood out in contrast against the red blood from his opponent that was smeared on the floor.

Staggering to his feet, Wolf limped over to the ship that had once been his. He used the hand that wasn't covering his face to reach under the control stick and unceremoniously grab most of the comm system wires and chips and ripped them out, throwing them against the wall where they shattered in a million pieces. He was dizzy and nauseated from the pain, nothing in his life had hurt quite like this, as he stumbled down the hallway to the infirmary.

The realization of just how screwed he was had already begun to set in.

3 hours later it wasn't a realization anymore, it was certainty. His leg would heal, stitches were really all he needed, but his eye..he'd never see out of that again. Wolf tried hard not to be nauseated at the thought, nobody would put up with a pilot who was half blind. Which even if they bought his story about Xander being aware of StarFox coming and the other pilot planning to betray Andross to them, he wasn't useful anymore. That was as good as dead. Maybe worse.

The sound of the door sliding open reached his ears but he didn't open his remaining eye, or look over. The lack of vision was disturbing and really he was in far too much pain to care who showed up.

Except when he heard Andross himself going "hrrmm" in thought above him. _Damn!_ Now he cared and glanced up at the ape, trying to shove down all of the emotions he felt so they wouldn't betray him entirely.

"I hear, that you found out who had been relaying my plans to the Cornerians." _Shit, they knew!_ _Oh fuck this is not going to end well._ Wolf knew what happened to people who were caught and Leon was going to be far too giddy at the prospect of taking out his marginal commander. Andross kept talking, much to Wolf's surprise. "And took care of him for me."

_Oh. He bought it. Good_.._I think?_ "Yeah. He's dead, hopefully rotting in hell."

"I have an offer to make you then, given your loyalty and the price you just paid for it."

Wolf hid his fear at what that offer might be, masking it in his voice with a bit of a growl instead. "That offer being?" Maybe not so smart to sound so angry with the boss, but it was the best he could do at the moment and hell, who wouldn't be angry right now?

"I'm not particularly a fan of employing those who aren't fully capable of meeting their duties. But, if you think you can learn how to fly without that eye within a couple of months, I'll let you stay on in your current position. Leon tells me you're quite in love with flying."

_Stay..flying? _Wolf didn't bother to hide his shock at that, and it took him a moment to respond. There weren't any other options left really, trying to leave now would only get him killed and there was no hope of Pepper sending anyone to rescue him. StarFox he was sure had other objectives besides him flying with them out, but that would have been his only chance. So what then? Take the offer or….. it didn't even seem to have an alternative.

"Yeah, I can. Best pilot in the system, half sighted or not, given the only guy who could best me for the title jumped into a singularity today. More than enough time to adjust." He felt far less certain than he sounded, but he was certain enough. He would, he had to.

* * *

**Corneria - Residence of James and Fox McCloud - 12 Months Before the Lylat War**

Fox dropped off his bags at the door of the condo and flopped down on the couch. A month till graduation. six months till he turned eighteen. The latter was more important to him, because then he could choose to go into the Cornerian Military proper, or, see if his dad would take him as a member of the mercenary team. He wasn't so sure he'd get what he wanted, which was the latter. It wasn't that he couldn't' fly well enough, he tromped out every other graduate in the school in his class and several years before while being the youngest to complete the program.

The you've vulpine had overheard finally though what the hesitation on his father's part (and his father never waffled , it was near a motto for him not to) to say yes was. The more senior McCloud wasn't worried that his son would upset the leadership balance of the team, but the opposite. That if left in a situation where he had to make the calls on his own, whether Fox _would_ make those calls when no-one was telling him what to do. In short, his father thought he was a little too much of a follower for the life of a mercenary and that stung. Fox could make tough choices without relying on someone else, as long as it involved fighting or flying. It was the rest of everything in his personal life he floundered a little with. But then why not let him do what he was clearly meant to do? What he was good at?

When his father got home from this last mission he'd just have to up front and tell him that. Demand it even. That solidified in his mind he flipped on the television and eventually dozed off on the couch with it still playing in the background.

He was awoken by the loud banging on his front door and glanced at the clock. 1:13 in the morning. That was odd. Really odd. His father had warned him that while there weren't many deals that had ever gone bad for the leader of StarFox, it had happened once or twice. Fox pulled the blaster that his father kept hidden in the kitchen out, and kept it in his hand while he walked over to the door, staying beside it not in front of it. "It's one in the morning, what do you want?"

"It's me General Pepper, open up, please." That jarred the vulpine, what in the world was someone like that doing on his doorstep now? He knew his dad often worked directly with the general but… With a sinking feeling he stashed the blaster in a table drawer and opened the door. The look on the hounds' face confirmed everything Fox was dreading. The general put a paw on the young mans shoulder. "Fox, I…I'm very sorry. We're still getting details as to how and what happened, but, your father's team ran into one of Andross' about six hours ago. Something went very, very wrong and….your father didn't make it out of the fight. I thought I should tell you myself."

The teenager swallowed and blinked a few times, that ..he'd always known it could happen but it couldn't really be happening. "How? He was better than ANYONE on the other side! You're wrong!"

"Fox, I know..I know this is hard. But I'm not wrong,I wish to hell I was. Peppy is the one who called it in. He's the only member of StarFox headed back here, and just barely at that. I promise you I will bring you to him the second I can."

"But..both…" The vulpine was having trouble finishing the sentence. Now _both_ his parents were gone. He had no idea what he was going to do.

"I know. I am…extremely sorry that the madman who started this war has managed to take both your parents from you. We'll figure something out though. I am going to ask the Senate to make an exception to the age limits on joining the military for you, if..that's something you want. It would take six months to get you through Basic anyways, and then right into our pilot program. But that's really a topic for later, I"m not expecting an answer. I just want you to let you know that there _will_ be somewhere for you."

"I..you're right I don't..I don't have an answer. Thank you, sir." It was everything the young man could do to not fall apart on the spot.

"Do you have somewhere you can go for now? You're more than welcome to stay with me and my wife if you wish"

Fox shook his head no, he wasn't going to fall apart in front of a man he barely knew. "Thats…not ..thank you but no. My best friend from flight school said I could call whenever. Me and his folks get along. I'd rather call him."

"Go ahead, I'll give you a ride over." Pepper wasn't as fond of the kid as he let on to be, but he also wasn't going to just leave the young man standing there. If anything, that would look horrific if he did and Peppy was just as capable as James had been of causing a ruckus when given cause. And that would definitely piss the last member of StarFox off in ways Pepper didn't want to deal with in the idea.

It wasn't until Fox was at the Lombardi family's house, that he finally lost all pretense of keeping it together.

The next day the entire story of Dengar's betrayal and StarWolf showing up had finally made it's way into the official reports, the news, and of course to Fox before it had hit the media. However, it wasn't grief that painted the vulpine's face. It was anger. Noone had ever seen him that angry, primarily at the traitor teammate of his fathers. Fox had even known the guy, he'd come over for dinner a few times when his dad hadn't been away. Personal vendetta didn't begin to describe what Fox felt towards the traitor.

He glanced over at his fellow flight-school graduate, clicking the tv off which was playing nothing but news about his father. "You weren't going to join the military were you Falco?"

"Me? Nah. Are you kidding? They're all too stodgy and get upset at the tiniest little thing you say. Why do you ask though?" Confusion was all over the avian's face, why was Fox asking about that of all things at the moment?

"Good, want a spot on a team?" The look on Fox's face was dead serious, and determined. There was no waffling about who he wanted to please or what he should be doing. He knew what he was going to do from here on out.

"..Whoa, Of course I do but, what the hell are you on about man?"

"Screw Andross is what I'm on about. I can assume dad's loan on that transport cruiser, all of his things, which means all of the StarFox team things that aren't Peppy's go to me as well. I'm not going to let that deranged psychopath take both my parents *and* the one thing I wanted which was to fly that team from me. As of today, *I* am that team. Peppy if he'll stay. You if you'll come."

"You're out of your head."

"So that's a no..then..damn."

"No, that's a reaffirmation of the obvious. Sign me up then, boss. We were all going to get dragged into this war one way or another, it didn't matter whether we chose the military or freelance merc or one of the corporations. You and I both know that. They're all gearing up for it, only question for some is which side which for you and me? Obvious choice. You sure you're ready for this though? I mean, if you want some time down man instead of working on prepping a team.."

"And do what? Mope? Hell with it." Fox would call Pepper later, who was going to be disappointed, but the vulpine found himself not caring. "They're going to bring the fight to our doorstep sooner or later, so we may as well use the time to prepare some damn payback."


	7. Singularity

**Author's notes: **Hopefully people are still reading this at all. If you think anything about it good or bad I would like to hear it. Also I think this story is running away with me well past my writing ability. Apologies for well ..all of it.

**July 5, 2014 Authors Notes:** Formatting Fixes, a couple minor edits. Fixed some timeline problems. Added a couple scenes with Fox.

* * *

_ "Remember your name. Do not lose hope -what you seek will be found."_ - Neil Gaiman

**Venom Airspace - 12 Months Before The Lylat War**

The best pilot the Lylat system had seen in decades fought the controls of his Arwing to little avail. What control systems hadn't been knocked out by Pigma's bombs weren't responding correctly. Alarms beeped from almost every panel, as James found he couldn't gain control of his ship's direction. His eyes grew wide as he glanced up through the cockpit glass confirming what the sensors were telling him. The singularity that had appeared in Venom's airspace six months ago was right in front of him and he was already in it's pull. If he had been able to steer and max the engines, he could still pull away but not for very much longer. His paws flew over the consoles trying to reroute everything, anything, to get free. His frantic efforts netted him nothing but the Arwing starting to tumble sideways as it approached. The console blared as every system error vanished replaced with a single warning of gravitational pull that was no longer able to be overcome by the engines.

The fox could only watch in horror as the stars spun dizzyingly until their light itself began to vanish, everything warped into the singularity. He took a deep breath, a small prayer in his mind for his son back home, and closed his eyes waiting for whatever unknown suffering he'd endure before it was over. He felt the ships spinning speed up, and darkness consumed every bit of light in the cockpit before he lost consciousness.

The next four hours were the strangest experience James had ever had. He drifted in and out of consciousness wondering if this bizarre existence was the afterlife. He could hear things that weren't there, sounds that didn't belong anywhere in space - voices, music from what sounded like his grandfather's radio. Reflections of places he had never been showed up against the glass, as his ship itself seemed to change. The console controls one moment looked as if they were ancient, old style knobs and displays and then looking completely foreign. The disturbing part was he was watching as they changed yet never saw them actually do so. His heart pounded in his chest, terror that this might be an unending existence for him creeping in. What if souls couldn't leave a singularity?

He shook, cowering for the first time ever in his own cockpit trying to pretend that the strange sights and sounds didn't exist. Ahead a small pinpoint of blue light appeared. Okay, now he was going to die after the universe tormented him a bit. His ship still tumbled as if there was no gravity here at all, moved by momentum towards the growing pinpoint of blue. As he got closer the strange sights and sounds faded, and the ship jolted as if hit by an invisible asteroid as it went into that strange blue glow.

Then it was silent, other than his ships own alarms. James pried one eye open, still shaking only to find stars ahead of him everywhere in his view. He tried to get a view of what was behind him or a sensor scan, and found that while he couldn't see what was going on, there were odd energy signatures all over the scanners that did not match the ones of the singularity he had approached. The vulpine forced himself to calm down enough to try and think, he wasn't dead, but he was stranded and had no idea where he was. At least life support was working fine thankfully. None of the constellations he could see matched anything he knew of. He hit the comm button hoping it was still working, that someone might be in range to hear.

"Hello? Is..anyone out there? This is James McCloud on the Redtail." Nothing but static met him back. A few minutes later, he tried again anyways. And again a half hour after that. He was debating whether freezing to death, running out of oxygen, or shooting himself was the better death when he growled at himself. McClouds don't give up. Last one isn't an option. He tried the com again two hours later, and nearly jumped out of his seat when he got a reply.

The noise that came back over his comm was clearly not static, but he couldn't understand it either.

"Transmission garbled. Please repeat?"

"Αυτό είναι ένα αστέρι πύλη. Ζητείται αναγνώριση."

"Er… I have no idea what you're saying…" James' ears twitched. He'd never heard that language in his life, and clearly neither had his translator.

There was a sudden flash of blue light and not too far ahead and to his upper right appeared a huge ship, easily the size of the Great Fox. His ears flattened back against his head, the style of the ship itself was nothing he was familiar with, nor were the markings or logos upon it. The only thing that looked remotely recognizable was that the ships logo was a phoenix. A very stylistic, artistic phoenix. Maybe.

The comm crackled again. "Please repeat identification and intentions. This is GateStarOne. We have a visual and radar lock on you."

"Mayday. This is James McCloud aboard the RedTail. I have no systems but comm, sensors and life-support functional. Navigation coordinates are also unknown. Assistance would be appreciated."

The Arwing's sensors told him he was being scanned, rather thoroughly before the answer came back. "Acknowledged RedTail. We will pull you aboard our docking station momentarily. We request that you not exit your ship until one of our team comes to you."

"Sure thing. I…really have nothing to hide here. Wherever here is."

A few minutes later his ship was pulled aboard a docking bay inside the huge ship. James turned the UV filters and polarization on the cockpit glass off and it shimmered into perfect clarity for an indoor environment. The dock itself resembled nothing back home. A great deal of the surfaces were curved, instead of the boxy style he was used to back home. He wondered what his rescuers, if they were going to be rescuers really, would look like.

A group of four soldiers, the weapons were obvious despite their differences, walked into the bay flanking a fifth who appeared to be unarmed. None were any kind of creature he had seen before although all of them were close to species he knew of. The four soldiers could have passed off for a rat, if not for the tuft at the end of the tail, rounded ears, and decidedly taller and leaner stature. The fifth was some species of bird, in red and orange and gold feathers wearing a black robe-style garment that covered everything but it's head and hands. The soldiers fanned out, as the bird motioned for James to exit his plane.

The vulpine hopped down, boots hitting the metal with a shockingly soft thud instead of the clang he expected and he looked over at the bird, tail twitching nervously.

"Greetings, James McCloud." The voice sounded tinny, which was easily explained by the collar he now noticed with a small black box on it. Some kind of vocal translator, perhaps. "Forgive our precautions. We are a patrol ship and rarely encounter requests for assistance that are not wholly falsehoods."

"Gotcha. Nope, I'm definitely really lost and stranded. Kind of hoping you don't kill me. Even better if you know the way back home. I'd like nothing more than to be out of your fur. Er. Feathers. You get my point." Fox eyes and ears took in everything he could, trying to process it all which was overwhelming. He was still a little dizzy from all the spinning, and kept a wary eye on the soldiers.

"Understood, James McCloud. I am Ferrin. Or at least, that is the closest thing my translator can pronounce in your language. And you are in quadrant 32 of the Qu'arsim System. We have no intentions of killing non-hostile creatures." The bird was really calm the entire time, so were the soldiers actually.

"No, no, not hostile. I just..need to know where I am. Try to fix my ship and get home. I've never heard of the Qu'arsim System however."

"Hrm. That is not altogether unexpected given you are speaking a language that has not been known in use for at least two centuries. Our translation software had to derive what you were speaking and then install the correct modules from the historical archives."

All of the color drained from underneath James' fur, his breath catching. He realized he had moved somewhere he didn't know in space, but he had no idea where he was in time. If he had moved at all in it! Singularities were still mysteries to begin with, and ones created by bizarre weapons tests were outside even that definition of norm. The fox put a hand on his ship wing to steady himself.

"This distresses you deeply I see. Perhaps you could shed some light on how you arrived here, and that will illuminate the situation as a whole for us." One of the soldiers shouldered his gun and stepped towards James, ready to catch the fox if he fell over. The other three kept their weapons ready but lowered.

James nodded, and explained what had happened outside of Venom and, tried to put to words what happened before he hit the blue light.

Ferrin's eyebrows went up in surprise, although he didn't say anything until the pilot was finished. "What you describe, is an uncalculated gate jump in a ship not designed for warp-space. I will not tell you it is an impossibility, but the plausibility is…theoretical at best."

"It was less than fun. That said…can it be done in reverse?"

Ferrin looked a little thoughtful at that. "Possible, yes. But not likely. However I believe you are asking if we can return you home. The answer to that is far more likely, if we can figure out where exactly you came from then we can calculate a jump for you. Although" He looked at the damaged Arwing "Not without a few modifications and repairs."

James leaned against the ship behind him with a small grin of relief on his muzzle, the pilot was more than a little lightheaded. He was chuckling, mostly out of stress as it really wasn't humorous to him. The soldier beside him stepped over and put an arm around the fox's back, steadying him.

Ferrin's amber eyes regarded the fox curiously, before speaking again. "That however, will take time. I would be so bold as to venture that somewhere to rest would suit you at the moment. I'm afraid I cannot let you go anywhere without a security escort, but my men here will lead you." James nodded at him, thanking him and the bird bowed back to him before turning to go.

* * *

**Aboard Great Fox - 10 Months Before the Lylat War**

The image of General Pepper was on the screen in the bridge as the new StarFox team was prepping it for it's first outing off world. A few SpaceDynamics engineers were along for the ride, checking systems. The project had been ambitious, it was the first privately owned transport battle-grade cruiser in the system. Designed from the ground up to James McCloud's specs there would never be another quite like it, although it was strongly hoped that others would follow utilizing some alterations to be sold to planetary defense forces. Originally what had been planned as a controlled media fanfare on the corporations part, had turned into a press field day.

"You can't be serious about this! Fox, let me talk to Peppy, he'll talk some sense into you! You're not even eighteen there's no way that you should be doing this. Nevermind your crew is just barely older than you!" The hound had no real authority to stop them other than revoking their access to launch, and what a PR nightmare that would be. Instead he was trying to talk this absurd band of mercenaries out of this.

"With all due respect General, we've had this conversation five times. I'm not letting the reputation my father built crumble to the ground. I'm not going to wait for the years it would take before you'd think about putting me in direct flight combat. I'm better than that and you and I both know it. I appreciate what you've done for me, but this is something I have to do." The vulpine glanced up at the comm, he hadn't shut it off in the General's face yet, because he was hoping to keep relations good enough that the cornerian military would hire them from time to time. He just had to prove it was worthwhile first.

"Just let me talk to Peppy, I"m sure he doesn't agree with.." The General was cut off by the older hare walking onto the bridge, wearing a StarFox flight suit just like the rest of the team.

"Arguing about it this long? I don't. What Fox is doing? It may be crazy, but he's right. And legally there's very little anyone can do to stop him. If he's going to do this, I'm with him." Part of it was that Peppy wasn't going to abandon the young man now, not when everything else had been taken from him. The other part was though, he knew that if Fox could get his feet under him and set on a direction, he was enough like James who regularly had pulled off insane stunts that the kid actually stood a chance of making a difference. He folded his arms and looked at the General "So either support us publicly, or denounce us or stay silent. What you do with the public reaction to this is the only choice you're getting Cornelius." Peppy didn't use his title or last name, which clearly irritated the other man. The hare continued "Besides, you won't have to worry about any of this if your pilots can take care of things before we're ready to go. More power to those men, but, if they don't you'll have us."

Falco interjected. "Besides, Foxy here is the only guy in flight school who constantly competed against O'Donnell, although I remember him too. Last I heard that's Andross' top pilot, he's not much older than us. May as well throw up a couple of folks who know what he's like against him. The other side sure as hell knows your military playbook, that's for sure."

Pepper looked upwards as if trying to convince the universe of how absurd this was before he sighed. "Fine. Fine. The Cornerian military officially wishes you luck and eagerly awaits to see if the new StarFox can uphold the same level of effectiveness as the old. Our contract with you will stand until we formally review it based on how things go. Pepper out" The screen blinked to black as the transmission ended.

The older hare glanced over at his new flight leader. "Get used to him being like that."

Fox just shrugged. "I'll worry about him later. For now lets get this crazy thing in the air and stretch her legs. I'm just glad that Space Dynamics is footing the bill for the fuel to give it a test run before we see real combat."

"Wouldn't look good for it to have problems on it's first real mission. They have a lot to loose here if so. Frankly this is far less expensive for them." Peppy ran a hand across one of the consoles. It should have been James here, this had been his dream. At least it hadn't died with him.

The launch itself went smoothly, the systems on board running as intended. Every new ship had quirks of course, but to everyone's pleasant surprise they were pretty mild and non critical. The lighting in two of the crew quarters had some odd interplay with the new drives, at certain speeds they clicked off. A couple of engineers wrote down what was going on, but overall the mood on the Great Fox was pretty pleased. Which changed abruptly when Fox's voice came over the comm system as the hallway lighting clicked over to a red-hue. "All non crew, um, I suggest you find somewhere to strap down to. It seems there are scouts from the other side already here, long range sensors just picked them up. Team, report to the docking bay. The AI will launch us. We don't need them reporting back about this just yet and this is way too close to home for them to be roaming around."

Everything was a blur of activity as the new team went to meet and take out the Venomian scouting group, who was still under the impression they were flying off radar. Had it been the radar the military was currently using in all of it's standard ships, they would have been right. The next generation of sensors wasn't yet in wide use throughout the Cornerian Fleet, but the GreatFox wasn't part of that officially. They did notice when the Arwings showed up in their range, cries of shock and cursing echoed across the open comm channels as they found themselves defeated before they knew what really hit them.

"Well, seems we got a combat test first out. Everyone okay?" Fox asked the rest of his team.

"Yeah, those guys were cake." Falco sounded pleased with himself anyways.

"Fine here. Don't let this go to your head you two. Those guys were a cakewalk. But you did good." Despite the calm words, even Peppy's voice had a bit of excitement to it.

"THAT WAS AWESOME! Although you really need to tweak the power coupling on the rear right G-Diffuser on Arwing 1, whichever one of you that is. It's why you're getting slight drag in tight turns, it's diverting a little too much power to itself." Another voice, higher pitched than the teams came over the channel.

"Who the hell is this? And why are you on this channel? And how do you know that?!" Fox was wholly unsettled by the unexpected chatter.

"Oh. Sorry! Sorry! I'm Slippy, uhh, I'm one of the SpaceDynamics guys. I know, I know, you wanted us all to hunker down. But I had to see! That was SO cool. I can fix that power-coupling before we go though. Please don't tell my boss about this though. I will SO be fired.."

"Son, you can tell that about my ship, just from watching from the bridge? You're right, there's some drag in the tight turns. It's been that way for a couple years though and nobody's managed to find the problem." Curiosity had the old hare more than annoyance.

"Sure I can. It's kind of obvious to me. But you have to understand the interplay between the drive model you all have and that coupler model. It's not standard on anything _but_ an Arwing, so the wiring looks fine to anyone familiar with anything else. It works okay that way, nothing will fry, it's just not optimal."

Fox glanced over at his mentor through the cockpit glass as they each pulled back into the dock and exchanged glances. The older man nodded and the vulpine tapped his headset. "So, Slippy, how are you at flying?"

"Me? I"m okay. I'm actually pretty decent but I'm not you guys, not at all. Why do you ask?'

"Because three is running skeleton crew for this kind of team and we don't have a mechanic. Not that you don't already have a job but, we sure could use you if you wanted to join up with us instead."

"Really! Seriously?! You guys are awesome! Absolutely. yes. Besides, I'm only a junior assistant here anyways!" Fox startled, finding that hard to believe. Oh well, their loss, his gain.

"Great, we'll work out details on the way back. That said, guys, lets go get paid for a few enemy ..kills." The word hung on his tounge, as the reality of what he'd actually just done hit him. He'd never actually _killed_ anyone before. It hadn't really even felt like killing, given that he never saw the actual pilots just the downed ships. He frowned a little to himself, before coming to the conclusion that at least pilots like him, and those scouts, knew what they were signing up for. It wasn't his side that planted car bombs in civilian vehicles, or dumped toxic waste into entire ecosystems, or played with innocent people's lives like they were game board pieces. _Sign up with somebody like that, you deserve what you get._ That mostly settled, at least so he thought for now the vulpine headed towards the bridge, jaw set, to hire one more team member and drop a message to a certain General.

* * *

**Aboard Gate Star One - 14 Months Later (Lylat War - Month 2)**

Days had stretched to weeks, which had turned into months as James and his far-flung hosts tried to decipher where he was relative to home. Every few days he and a navigation engineer named Ria would compare what they knew of systems, trying to find common ground. The rest of the time James found himself with very little to do now that his Arwing was repaired. Ferrin hasn't been willing to teach James much of how their technology worked, but they had wired in a gate-jump system. It would only work on known and stable gates, which the singularity wasn't. Which left him with a lot of free time and a lot of worries. He tried to distract himself by learning their language, which was slow going but interesting.

He was sitting currently in the small conference room that he and Ria used, frustration plain in his expression. Drawings and notes of systems and locations sprawled all over the digital drawing board as James essentially tried to recall every scrap of knowledge he knew of points in and out the Lylat system. So far neither side had found any locations they both knew. James held his head in his hands for a moment, he didn't know if Peppy had ever made it home and he worried constantly about his son. Blue eyes scanned over the drawings again, no, there was literally NOTHING else he could think of that he knew that wasn't already on the board. They had already used every bit of data his Arwing had contained. They were out of options.

He glanced over at the navigation engineer who had been assigned to try and figure it out with him. To his eyes she was something of a cross of a raccoon and a fox. Ria, as she had introduced herself, had red furred with white markings and black socks that went up to her shoulders. Currently she was tapping on a tablet, entering in more of the data James had managed to remember. She glanced up, catching his look and frowned a little, a sympathetic look on her face. "Why don't we take a break for a while. I'm going to go get a drink, do you want anything?" The fox shook his head and she stood up and headed down the hallway.

James idly traced a claw on the tablet screen that was in front of him, scrolling through what was effectively, the ship's library which was fairly extensive. Covers of books with titles he really wasn't taking time to decipher came into view on the screen and then off to be replaced with more. He paused, wait a moment, what was that? He scrolled backwards and tapped the tablet once lightly to make it pause, staring at an oddly familiar image. Tapping the tablet again to open the book itself, it was some kind of history book apparently. Text, but with a section of images of the world it was about. In these, James saw what he knew about only from what scant history had remained when the refugees from that system had begged Lylat for help. Towering buildings that looked as if they were made of obsidian or black stone, clustered in cities that were surrounded by relatively untouched forests whose trees were gracefully twisted and turned , roots and branches sprawling with either black leaves or green needles. Iliona, if that was what it was, had been the first planet in the Ervi system.

When Ria came back James shoved the tablet at her and pointed at it. "That, I think I know this world. I didn't think to mention it before because that system doesn't…really exist anymore. But it looks like Ervi. Do you have anything on it?" Desperation made his voice sound whiney, but at this point James didn't care.

Ria nodded, oddly unenthusiastic "Sure do". Her paws flew over the tablet next to the board as the display winked out to be replaced by some sort of navigation software screen. The letters still looked completely bizarre to James, as she pulled up the known data on the system that was in the book. A spinning rendering of the Ervi system came into view.

Getting to his feet, James stepped closer to the screen and put a single claw gently against the spinning image of a dull red star surrounded by a system where all but the inner planet were uninhabitable. Two moons hung over the first one, one white in color and one black. What were the odds of that happening twice? He had no idea but he tapped it gently. "It is. Unless there are two identical systems out there."

Ria cringed and tried to hide it, and James continued. "I never saw their world, but this matches the descriptions of ..well ..history the refugees from that system gave us when they fled to Lylat a couple of decades ago." For all that James was currently excited and overjoyed at finding it, Ria looked..uncomfortable.

He tilted his head at the smaller female "What's wrong?"

"It's part of our history too. This world was the first and only one we encountered anywhere in that side of the universe. There are some…cultural differences we were not aware of when we first began trading with them. What we gave them intended to..help them didn't turn out that way. It's pretty old stuff as far as history goes but..we're all taught it."

James nodded, leaning against the wall and looking at Ria hoping she would continue.

"We traded them more scientific knowledge about power generation and medicine, in exchange for some of the architectural techniques and …interesting trade skills that they possessed. It wasn't what most would call even, but..Qu'arsim puts a high value on art and knowledge in general. Frankly most of ours is assimilated from elsewhere as opposed to something historically ours. Their leaders however..we thought they would use it to better their people."

"Ah. The rest of this story I know. Their leaders used it as a way to control people, withholding their newfound gains from everyone else for their own benefit. Eventually their society collapsed, effectively regressing to a much less advanced way of life with the exception of a few families. Whose lines eventually became far removed from everyone else. Between sporadic but lasting violence from the others and a small gene pool that started resulting in …fewer and fewer functional members, whatever they had known was lost as were they."

Ria nodded. "It's why we…generally withhold trading knowledge as opposed to goods until the other side is well known to us. But you said it's not there anymore, what happened?"

"Their star was dying. It's since gone supernova, what remained of them either died with it or in the winters that preceded it. The ones who didn't flee to various points that is. Our system took number of them in as refugees." James didn't mention that it wasn't a step up for most of them in the end. "Something of a tragic story really, but…I'm just glad to see anything I recognize. Can we calculate a jump there?"

Ria grinned nervously and glanced around the hallways. "So, the jump coordinates were long locked away and forbidden from being used again. However, most navigation engineers try at some point in their graduate studies to figure out what they were based on various historical texts and data. It's something of a ..rite of passage to try it."

James' ears flopped down, even though he was trying not to fall apart at having come so close and feeling like it was yanked away again. "How do you know who got closer?"

"How fast they confiscate your paper when you show it off and whether they demand you destroy all your notes." She was starting to get a bit of an impish look on her face. "Myself and a couple of friends in the class before me all arrived at the same answer more or less, we're off by no more than than a couple of clicks as to where we thought their star was. I didn't exactly mention I'd calculated it, while the other two did. They graduated before I would have had to say anything. I never planned to do anything with it and I thought it was too interesting to just get rid of. Besides, someone else could figure the same thing out, clearly they have before."

"Ria, I promise you I will not breathe a word to anyone. Although I surely like the way you think." James had his hands on Ria's shoulders, gripping tighter than he meant to. Rules were sometimes meant to be broken, and he was immensely relieved that she had thought the same in this instance.

"Well if you go home I don't have to worry about you doing that." Ria smiled at him a little amused. "Good idea to keep it to yourself until then however. It would be….a big deal if you did. We'll tell Ferrin that we found you a jump point, and just…as long as he doesn't ask I won't tell him what I'm programming in. He won't recognize what it is based off the coordinates anyways, and we'll alter them to get you closer to your actual home. Now, please, let go? Ow." The fox quickly stepped back, looking sheepish and mumbling an apology. "It's okay James." She gave him a quick hug, really she had been the only person on the ship who seemed very warm personality wise at all.

"I don't know how to thank you for this Ria. I don't know that I can."

"Don't worry about it. It's a bigger deal for you than it is for me, I promise. Besides, if what you told me about your home system is true, you've got enough things to go handle." James had told her, given she would never run into any of them about Andross and the war, but also about the fact he suspected that his own government was being controlled a little too much by Pepper who wasn't on the up-and-up either.

* * *

The crew of Gate Star One had taken a photograph of themselves with James, and given him a copy of it which he had tucked into the dash of his Arwing next to the photo of Fox and Fox's mother that was there. He glanced back at Ferrin and Ria who had come to see him off. "You all have no idea how grateful I am to you."

Ferrin simply smiled. "We are more than happy to have been of assistance to you, James McCloud. I wish you well in your return home. Ria tells me she has pre-programmed the coordinates that should be very near your own home."

Ria looked at Ferrin as if expecting him to do or say something else and Ferrin sighed. "Also, Ria here managed to convince my superiors to equip your ship with a cloaking device. I'm not entirely sure what she said to achieve that, but you will find the controls for it on the same panel with the gate-jump. If things are as dire as you mention back home, perhaps it will help you in your goals."

The pilot lifted his sunglasses and looked at Ferrin with raised eyebrows. "It will. I thought you were forbidden from sharing technology with me though."

"Forbidden from sharing the details with you still, yes. Or sharing it at large with your own people. However, you have been here long enough that Ria was allowed to vouch for your use of it." Ferrin didn't sound like he was thrilled with the idea and James hoped that the navigator hadn't gotten herself in trouble.

"I'll destroy it before I allow anyone else to get their hands on it. You have my word."

Ferrin nodded and bowed to the fox, who returned the gesture before hopping into his Arwing. He waved once to Ria before they passed through the airlock door and he waited for the dock door to open.

A single Arwing shot out into the black, towards the nearby area of blue light held stable by six field generators that circled it. It vanished from view as the cloaking device was activated shortly before it passed through the gate.


	8. The Long Road Down

**Author's Notes:** A bit of a longer wait, and back to longer chapters. Thanks to the folks who have read so far for sticking with this. I would dearly love to hear what people think so please do review. We're almost back to the present, where we left off at the end of chapter 4. We'll get there sometime during chapter 10. As all the pieces set into motion over the years come crashing together. And yes, Pepper is a grade A jerk through and through.

**July 5, 2014 Update:** Formatting fixes. Changed some content to be in line with earlier chapter revisions. Tried to expand on James' personality/motivations a little here.

* * *

"_Hope is a drug. More addictive and destructive than anything you could ever buy with actual money, you pay for it with your soul. You're better off without it. If you want to survive here you better figure that out fast_." - Lord Wolf O'Donnell of Sargasso to new arrivals, undated quote.

**Venom Airspace - Lylat War Month 1**  
"Explain to me again why you let them get away?!" The angry voice of Pigma came over the comm as Wolf allowed the Cornerian fighters to retreat.

"Because, you dense idiot, we don't get paid by the kill, we get paid by the number of enemies we don't allow to reach Venom. Fuel and ammo are money, and we're mercenaries remember? I would think a man as obsessed with his bank account as you would understand that." The snarl in his voice made it clear Wolf was tired of the questioning. He watched the other damaged fighters flee with a measure of envy, wishing he was leaving with them. _I hope you realize Pepper, half your men only come home because I'm doing my damndest out here._

"I would say I'd do it for the fun, but I'm not the one in charge." Leon sounded far more calm as his voice interrupted. _Probably because you get your fill of violence elsewhere. I'm grateful for that, maybe._  
_"_See, Leon understands how it works around here. Now shut your trap pig or I'll let him loose on you for insubordination." It was an effective threat, generally. Only it was no longer a threat, Wolf would happily do it. There was only chortling and snorts of laughter in reply and Wolf shook his head. What a screwed up team. Himself, a psychopath, Andross' nephew, and an insane Cornerian defector. "Why do you guys always fight? Ugh." The still high-pitched voice of Andrew grated on Wolf's nerves. At least he was only annoying, and a rather terrible pilot, given he couldn't threaten that one with anything.

"We're not. S'over. Do me a favor and keep an eye on your six next time." He kept his voice far more level this time. Andrew was mostly untouchable, and the brat knew it. Too much of a reprimand and it would be the lupine in the torture chambers instead.

"I was trying to! It's not my fault!" Andrew continued whining until Wolf clicked the comm off and sighed. _It's never your fault Andrew. You could shoot us all down and claim it was an accident and probably get hell from your uncle but he wouldn't kill you. Or if he did your death would be mercifully quick._  
He turned the fighter around, headed back for the base. His team would follow him, without the orders. Mostly because Leon would explain to the other two that the silence and turn was effectively an order to follow back to base. When the team lead stopped talking and got quiet, it was best to obey him. Someone would catch the brunt of his temper in short order, someone always did these days.

**Corneria City - General Pepper's Office - Lylat War Month 1**

General Cornelius Pepper was scowling at the current reports on his desk. Andross was winning this war, somehow. From being exiled with near nothing only a few years ago, which should have been a death sentence, to posing a threat to the entire system's government. He skimmed over the casualty reports, none of their pilots had managed to get anywhere near Venom before being shot down or forced to retreat.

He stood up, pacing back and forth in his small office. Wolf O'Donnell hadn't sent any further information after James had been shot down. Had he defected along with Pigma Dengar? The odds were looking that way. His team of pilots, calling themselves StarWolf were becoming a problem. Pepper would relish the look on the pilot's face when he told him that defecting wasn't exactly in the bargain they'd made. That arrogant asshole lupine had forgotten his place, and was becoming a liability. Cornelius snorted, he should have expected no better of Wolf's sort. Pepper felt most of those who had begged Lylat for refuge years ago had turned into nothing but problems,leeches on their society at best and active problems at worst, he'd never wanted to let them stay in the first place.

Pepper mused a moment longer, debating his options before deciding that it was pointless to keep sending pilots who were actually _in_ the military at these mercenaries who spent their times doing nothing but flying and dog fights. He knew the team he had in mind would be perfect for it and wanted to settle an old score. Cornelius Pepper just didn't like admitting it, given how hard he'd tried to convince McCloud not to continue StarFox. It came off as grovelling now, but...it would have to be done. This world was NOT safe with just his own forces in play. The general sent a quick and pleading message to James' son who had stepped into fufil the void his father had left. The common word was that Fox was almost as good of a pilot as his father, just lacking some of the experience. The results of their skirmishes with the other side so far lent proof to that. As long as someone didn't move behind the scenes to betray them like Pigma had, perhaps they could win this war for Corneria.

Technically since the team had kept the same name and at least one member the same, the prior contract had still stood. Pepper already had his ears chewed out by the Senate for not running it by them first, well, by the part of the senate that either was making appearances to still not be in his pocket or the few who weren't. There was little else they could do about it but gripe at him though. _Drat. You're getting old if you keep forgetting you need to get those images into secure storage._

He tapped underneath his desk, taking out a key and unlocking the hidden drawer that popped out loaded on a spring and picking up the small storage card that he had gotten a few days ago. The photos contained within would have hit the tabloids the day they were taken, or possibly the real papers, given their tawdry content documenting the affair and some interesting meetings with less than savory businessmen that Senator Riliyn had gotten involved in. Pepper however, paid better, and most of the more nosy photographers who took such things, knew it. It was a convenient little circle, really. Discretionary spending he didn't have to account for, used to ensure that he kept the majority of the Senate and especially the budget commission in his pocket, ensuring that he had discretionary spending he didn't have to account for. Grabbing the small stand alone tablet he used to interact with the secure data store he had setup, he headed down the hall.

The store itself was amusing to him, it existed on paper as simply a storage unit related to the three recruits he had originally embedded in various places. In reality it was where he kept all of the little tidbits that he liked to keep to himself. Only he, and in theory, those three recruits, were on the access list, and the project was labelled cancelled anyways despite it's completely active status in reality. His name alone would be too easy to spot as an outlier, and looked strange as there were always supposed to be at least three people with rights to any given data. Paranoia had served him well over the years, ensuring the little problems like that never surfaced.

The door beeped as he tapped in his key code and walked into….an utterly empty room. He blinked, shouting a loud yell that was clearly heard down the hall wondering what the hell was going on. Pepper stormed back out into the hall and grabbed the first person he saw. "Sound the alarms. Someone's taken every last secure data store!". The rather pudgy looking tortishell cat with glasses cringed a little at the anger directed her way.

"Sir, yes Sir, but they haven't been stolen. They were moved last night, as part of the removal of targets from Corneria City. They're halfway to Fichina now, right on schedule. The transport just checked in an hour ago."

"Wait..what? On whose authority?"

"The Senates, of course, Sir. All stores which were not marked in active projects but could reveal information that would harm Corneria were Andross to obtain it were moved. All active needed projects have been moved to Emergency Bunker 3, and can be accessed via the data connection to there."

Pepper blinked, staring at her. Inwardly he was cussing, but he wasn't about to let that show to her. "I see, then. Why wasn't I informed of this decision?" He towered over the smaller female, glaring down at her both literally and figuratively given his rank.

"Sir, I have no idea. Possibly it was just lumped in with all of the other similar decisions that did not affect current military operations, but that should have reached your desk. I genuinely don't know. I only know the move happened because I was here last night and checked the clearances of the team who loaded them up."

_Shit._ Pepper remembered seeing the message, and glancing over it. It had looked like absolute drivel and mostly revolved around the Senators scrambling to save their own tails, as well as a few actual civilian related changes. He'd signed off on it without a second thought. "I'll investigate that myself then.." He peered over at her shoulder to catch her rank 'Lieutenant. Far less worrisome of an issue than all of that actually being missing." A smile appeared on his face, as if he was relieved. "Keep up the good work, dismissed." She nodded once, a little grateful that he'd calmed down and hurried down the hallway.

Quickly putting the card back where he'd hidden it before he tapped his claws frustratedly on the desk. No matter, whether he really had access to it or not, the Senate thought and most knew he had it and wouldn't know the difference. Two of the three recruits were still embedded in their teams, loyally. That left only one person who could pose a problem. One person who didn't know where the data was, didn't know what it contained, and was going to hopefully be dead in short order.

**Corneria - The Apartment of Jamie Eastman - Lylat War - Month 2**

The sound of someone very carefully cutting into plastic and paper with a knife was the only sound in the small apartment in the financial district of the city. The apartment itself was sparse, functional but unremarkable other than it's extremely small size, the furniture was cheap but serviceable and all of it looked like it was new. A duffle bag was dropped by each door, the front and the fire escape with clothes, money and very shortly two complete sets of paperwork for alternate identities and a couple of throw away cell phones with prepaid cards. A black fox with cream colored ears and paws was finishing altering the photographs in the last one. There weren't any personal effects scattered around, only the absolute necessities with one exception. There was a safe in the room, one of the kind built to withstand a great deal more force or fire than one would imagine would happen here. Inside, lists of contacts, photocopies of documents and some photographs of others were tucked inside along with a fairly significant quantity of cash and a couple of weapons that should have been military issue only, along with a red scarf and a pair of aviator style sunglasses. The blue-eyed vulpine finished pressing the final layer of faked hologram and protective plastic into place, and brushed off the front while taking a moment to inspect his work. It should pass everything but the scanners in the actual senate and military bases. Which was unfortunate, really but there was no faking those out.

Satisfied with it, he tucked it into the new wallet that he had put in his pocket and checked the watch on his wrist. Plenty of time to get down to the other side of town and meet tonight's contact, a former reporter. Another sob story likely, of how they'd gotten involved with selling information and found that when something went wrong and their buyer was unhappy suddenly they were blacklisted from any decent job they could have tried for with very little explanation. Sorting out the truth from the drunken ramblings and occasional conspiracy theorist who was no longer able to tell truth from fiction was a bit tedious, but only because there was no shortage of both real information and nonsense.

Most of what he'd managed to find so far, was unfortunately evidence that blackmailed the Senate. Nothing provable on the person who was supposedly doing the blackmail. Enough stories correlated though, that "Jamie Eastman" had no doubt that things were far darker in the Lylat system than most imagined. The road to proving it though, looked long. His opponent was crafty and had been at this game for years, possibly a decade or more. The fox couldn't help but feel deeply betrayed, and not by the person who had directly betrayed him oddly enough. Contrary to the story he told, he wasn't in it for revenge. He wanted to make things right. Apparently being "dead" didn't change that about James McCloud. Even if it had changed nearly everything else.

He glanced out the window at the sky and sighed. He missed his son, terribly. The gnawing guilt that he was faking his own death instead of going home kept him up many nights that he spent hacking into various systems or calling up offworld contacts instead. He couldn't go back though, everyone else was tangled up in the current war with Andross. _Shouldn't I be fighting that instead?_ Doubts plagued the mercenary, although he always came around to the same conclusion. If Pepper won this war and noone was working to find out what was going on back home, it didn't lend towards a good future for anyone. _I'll do what I have to, then I'll go home._ James told himself that, regularly. When he took his repainted Arwing out under an alias, earning money doing some job or another (he had money squirreled away in various places, but not so much he didn't need some income to fund all the things he needed to do), when he booked another client meeting, one step closer to going back home.

He wouldn't admit to himself that it might also be the lure of taking down a power structure that shouldn't exist. The feeling that he was making more of a difference to the people who mattered to him this way, than he ever would have playing by the rules.

**Corneria - The Apartment of Jamie Eastman ****-****The End of the Lylat War**

A small icon began blinking on and off on the corner of the cellphone as it made a soft ping. Jamie/James looked away from the computer monitor he was at, the list of files being copied to local disk from the compromised server scrolling rapidly by. Tapping at the notification it showed him the incoming text message.

Just passed Zoness checkpoint. Following Team StarFox to Venom. Going radio silence to outside comm systems shortly due to interference Last data drop is in your locker. - Sent from Bill Grey

Good Luck, Bill. Thank you for everything. - Sent from Jamie Eastman

Bill Grey had never met Jamie Eastman in person, as that was far too risky given he might easily realize who the other man really was. The canine pilot had been far more skeptical of any notion of outright corruption, but he did agree something strange was happening lately in the upper parts of the Cornerian military. James had known all the right words to convince him to share whatever information came Bill's way. As soon as the fox finished typing the reply though, he set the phone down, frowning. He couldn't just sit here knowing what his son was up against. He snagged one of the go bags in the apartment and headed for the rented hangar where his Arwing was stored under a tarp.

Throwing it back he climbed up into the cockpit and brought the ship to life as he turned on the sensor systems. A moment before take off the ship itself shimmered before vanishing from view entirely as the cloaking system came online. If James hurried and hit the right warp gates, he could reach Venom before his son did.

Hours later, James was cussing at his sensors. He'd timed the last warp wrong, and managed to arrive in the chaos that was Venom's airspace after his former team, now his son's had arrived. He dove to dodge the fighting between what remained of Andross' army and the other members of the team, having seen Fox's ship headed for the labyrinth of a base alone.

The engines in his Arwing screamed as he pushed them past any sane or safe limit, several minutes behind the other ship. Minutes were an eternity in any space fight once it started, and James knew it. When he caught up with his son, the obvious debris and signs of battle that indicated the death of the Venom Army's leader, his first reaction was pride. Which quickly was followed by the stark realization that the entire station had been set to self destruct in the event of it's leader's death as warning systems began to go off, and it was obvious that his son's ship was badly damaged and frankly, Fox was flying clearly disoriented.

The shimmer of the ship appearing as the cloaking system was shutdown caught Fox's attention, James could hear him over the open comm channel before he switched to a direct one where others wouldn't overhear.

"Follow me, Fox"

James had to fight himself to say only as little as was necessary, as he needed to focus on getting them both out of here as quickly as possible. The older pilot knew he was about to vanish again out of his son's life, something that would come to haunt his conscience and dreams. Once they were both free of the blast radius, James flipped the cloaking system back on and vanished from both radar and view.

He could hear his son calling out for him over the comm, confused as to where he'd gone. James paused, and watched as Fox gave up on looking for him and turned his ship to regroup with his team. The end of the war, the death of the man who had killed his wife in the process of trying to kill him years before this all started, didn't seem to really make him feel anything like he thought it would. It was the sight of having to watch his son go, by his own choice, that stayed with him instead. Cornelius Pepper was going to pay for that one day, James vowed. Because James already was paying for it.

**Corneria - Slums - 1 Month After the Lylat War**

The bar was possibly the seediest in the entire city, decorated with dirty floors, deep scratches in the furniture, and scrawled pen and marker on the walls. The clientele was a step down from the decor, several would have risked arrest had they walked into a place in the nicer side of town. Here, nobody cared, the police showed up sometimes if there was a real reason but by and large the neighborhood had it's own sort of order. Mostly comprised of don't piss off people stronger and more powerful than you. None of the tables were well lit, and in the far back room where the light was dimmest, a single figure waited. From a distance, it was hard to discern anything about the man underneath his full length trench coat, with the collar turned up around his neck and his face turn down into the jacket. A brimmed hat covered his ears, leaving only the fact that he was some kind of canid of a larger build obvious without getting close.

He could hear the main room clearing out as several Cornerian Military soldiers entered the front room. Two of them entered the back room, and one stood by the door, the other by the window. All were armed. Only once the place was quiet again, did the front door creak open again, and Cornelius Pepper step out from the armored black car outside. The general walked in, and sat down across the table from the man in the trench coat, who didn't look up. "Sir." The word may have indicated respect, but the tone didn't.

"Don't you dare give me that. I really should just have you shot where you sit as a traitor. Shamefully they won't quite let me do that in public, yet." Pepper had tried to figure out a way in fact, to do just that today but the location was less than secure. No telling who the other man might have set up to overhear or record such events. No, it was a problem that would have to be solved a little later.

Wolf lost any civility or pretense of calm instantly. "The fuck! Traitor? Have you gone and lost your goddamn mind? _You_ sent me out there. I _would_ be reporting in at your office if I wasn't still a wanted criminal with my face plastered all over every wanted poster in the system. Nice coming home present, after almost two years of hell itself." The guards had hands on their blasters at the outburst, which got a low growl from Wolf although he didn't dare reach for his own.

"In which you stopped sending us information when your team shot down James McCloud. I'm fairly certain that, counts as traitor." Pepper's voice was far calmer, despite his annoyance at the entire thing, he wasn't stooping to yelling with someone this far beneath him.

Wolf's fist slammed down on the table and leaned forward prompting the guards to aim at him and he found himself not entirely caring. Pepper blinked and scooted back a hair seeing the eye patch and vicious snarl that was far more feral than the recruit he had sent out, the other purple eye looking at him with an angry fire behind it. "_My_ team? No, James' team did that all on their own. I just got saddled with the baggage after the fact. I was a little busy at the time keeping one of Andross' other pilots from getting his paws on the encryption chips we were using. It got destroyed in the process, among..other things." He motioned to the eyepatch in frustration keeping all of his attention on the General. _Seriously? I go through all that fucking shit and this is what I get for it from this lot? And we're the good guys! Ha!_

It was a long moment before Pepper spoke again, as he weighed his thoughts on the idea that Wolf might be telling the truth. "Then why didn't you leave? You certainly did a fantastic job of convincing everyone of your loyalty to Andross. Crawling back here after your side lost is really not going to get you anywhere."

The snarl was followed with bared fangs, which Wolf would have been happy to use or his weapon, were there not guards already aiming at him. "And just how was I supposed to do that? I'd have been shot down by the rest of my so called team in a heartbeat. Also try learning to fly with no depth perception. I'd like to see you pull it off. You want proof I wasn't on his side, I'll fucking give you proof. How many damn ships did we chase off and somehow decide that shooting down wasn't worth it? Do you have any idea just how interesting it was to try to keep a bunch of deranged psychopaths in the employ of an even more deranged psychopath from killing everything in sight?! Given I had no way to contact you, and no way to leave, and you damn sure weren't going to send anyone to try and get me a second time that's the only damn thing I could do!"

_I was wondering that myself why so many were chased not killed. Or why Fox said StarWolf had at least one clear opportunity to kill him and didn't. I suppose he's telling the truth. But he's not worth nearly enough to try and clear his name. Especially not now, I don't think those were the only crazy people over there. Lupines and their damn tempers. _Pepper hemmed, calmly, while Wolf was struggling not to rip out the mans throat or more likely, get quickly shot before he managed to even really attempt it. "That, I could believe. So, lets assume for a moment that's all quite true. Even if it was, your name being all over everywhere as responsible for these things wasn't my doing. Thus I can't undo it either. While that chain of events is perhaps unfortunate, once you decided to stay there, that largely ties my hands."

Wolf peered at him, angry still but more rational now that he wasn't being called a liar and a traitor in addition to things he was actually possibly guilty of. "Your hands? Tied? I really doubt that. So what, you just throw me to the curb?"

The older man shoved his chair back from the table "So what, is that one Lyra O'Donnell continues to live with her foster family. You, are of absolutely no use to me. So yes, call it the curb if you like. You sealed your fate and it's of no concern of mine any longer. With a couple of exceptions. Any word of our previous arrangement and not only will we categorically deny it, it will be Lyra who pays for it. I see you anywhere near Corneria City or any military base, and the same thing will happen." Wolf stared at the general, wide eyed. "Bad things befall lupines who aren't strong enough to fend off those who believe they don't belong in Lylat. I dare say Lyra never has, and never will be, anything resembling strong."

"You bastard." Wolf nearly spat in Peppers face. That it would be Lyra who paid for it was the only thing that was holding him back from throwing what was left of his existence away for only a chance to hurt the other man.

"No, son. I know who my father was and unlike you, I was wanted." Pepper stood and turned on his heel, not waiting for a remark. "Why don't you try being grateful that what information you did get to us was useful enough that I'm willing to let that little bit of our prior deal stand, and I suppose I'll refrain from placing a bounty on your head. Call it a measure of generosity. One of these days, you will learn your place in the world. I'll give you a hint, aim lower. Now get out of my city." With that, he left, the soldiers following him out while keeping a watch behind them.


	9. Missed Chances

**July 5, 2014 Update: **Formatting fixes.

* * *

_"To bring the dead to life; Is no great magic. Few are wholly dead; Blow on a dead man's embers; And a live flame will start. "_ - Robert Graves

**Sargasso Station - 8 Years ALW**

Wolf sat in his office, boots up on the desk in front of him as he read the morning reports of goings on and the status of various systems and troops in his employ. The scrawny teenager who had walked into Pepper's office years ago bore little resemblance to the lean and muscled mercenary who ruled over the colony of thieves, smugglers, and worse. The only things he still cared about were flying, watching his own back, and who you could step on and who you couldn't. These days, the scarred lupine could order around just about anyone he chose. The rumor Lord O'Donnell had come from some backwater moon colony that had gone feral, was a particularly amusing theory to him. How badly grown men flinched when he grinned with his fangs was a good indicator of whether they believed it or not. The latest, unfortunately still imperfect, cybernetic technology now replaced the eyepatch and it showed him further data on some of the incidents in the reports he was reading. Someone was getting sloppy about giving him details and he made a mental note to handle it very shortly. Wolf was hated, and he was feared, but fear was enough to keep most of these idiots in line.

He tapped his com for the line that was reserved for StarWolf, which had reformed after a couple of months of laying low. "Yo, Leon, Panther, you two going to sit on your lazy asses all day or we going to go out on that Katina job?" Membership had changed slightly in the group, leaving himself, Leon Polwaski, and Panther Carouso who hadn't been part of the original. Dengar had attempted to rejoin and Wolf had joyously and unceremoniously kicked the greedy bastard off the wing of the Great Wolf. A teammate who would stab you in the back for a handful of promises was not one he intended to put up with. Sadly, they had been landed at the time which bruised the other man's pride more than anything. Andrew had cracked up largely after the war, Wolf still occasionally did business with him if the money was tempting enough, but he was pretty sure the kid was delusional if not an outright madman. He figured insanity must have run in the family.

"Panther would like a day off someday, oh fearless leader who never gets a date."

Wolf growled back into the comm "Says the follower who gets shot down by every date he gets. How many times you get slapped this week alone cat?"

The grumbling on the other end of the comm made him smirk. "Leon?"

"The cat has a point, what's the point of being in charge if we never get a break?"

"Ugh, fine you two. We'll take the next one. This one probably is a cake walk so you better hope the next one isn't shit." Truthfully, he had enough money now he could stop taking jobs himself if he wished. His claws were in almost every major illicit deal that came through Sargasso. His staff, and consequently him, might have known nearly everything that went on, but he stopped very little of the chaos if it didn't involve his own were few rules on the colony, foremost don't bring Cornerian military down on their heads. Don't annoy O'Donnell was a close second. Only Corneria didn't have some base of operations that eventually reported back to his desk. Sitting around sucked compared to flying though, and to Wolf complacency was as good as dead.

Light flooded the corridors in this part of the station, making plain the dents and scorch marks in the dark gray metal walls and floor. As he rounded a corner, he found himself nearly knocked over by a tiger just as tall likely equally as strong as himself. The other man apologized, but something in it sounded off. That was planned. Something about him was familiar too, as if they'd met during something important he couldn't quite grasp onto at the moment.

Wolf let the tiger slide by and then turned, weapon already drawn and found that his opponent had done the same. One purple eye met two brown ones, each evaluating the other in an instant. "The hell are you doing?! This is my station."

The tiger's voice was what jogged the mercenaries' memory enough to place him. He was one of Pepper's special recruits. "My job and so what?" The feline was faster, and aimed square at Wolf's chest and fired, sending the gray lupine back into the wall behind him and then sliding down still. "That, was far too easy. You were supposed to be a challenge."

When the tiger stepped over to check for key cards and anything else of use, Wolf smirked as he looked up and grabbed the man and pulled him down, slamming his head into the wall. "I am a challenge." There was a yell of shock from the feline who tried to scramble away and raked down Wolf's muzzle with his claws. "Yow! You're gonna pay for that!" The two struggled to pin the other one down when the tiger dove for his blaster. A striped arm reached frantically for the dropped weapon while the lupine kicked it sickening crunch of bone echoed in the otherwise empty metal hallway as the attacker's face met the pilot's boot. There was a whimper and a snarl in response as claws hit empty air trying to grab onto Wolf again. "You idiot. You want to know your mistake before I kill you?" There was another kick, this time he hit the tiger's ribs who hesitated in agony. "You underestimated me, like every-fucking-body else. I rule a den of outlaws, of course I wear a blasterproof vest." Without any debate Wolf got ahold of his own weapon and aimed. The conversation ended with a single shot. "Rot in hell. I'll send your boss to meet you one day."

Wolf wiped at the blood dripping from his muzzle with the back of a paw, grinning from the rush of the fight and victory in it. He was panting hard as he stood up shoving the tiger's corpse off of him. That was one body he didn't want the Cornerian's finding out about and he'd have to deal with. It seems he would have a busy afternoon despite not going on a mission.

He tapped the comm again. "Panther, Leon, heads up. Just found an old acquaintance of mine skulking around doing the flea-bag General's bidding. I'm going to go see him out the back door, and all."

"What?! Here?! Who possibly snuck in here?! That you know? You did _not_ just kill Fox McCloud. We really don't need that kind of attention right now." The feline responded quickly with a large amount of irritation.

There was a growl at the mention of the name of the brat who_thought_ he was better than Wolf. Had O'Donnell known then that all of his efforts at balancing fooling Andross while letting Corneria win were for naught, he'd never have held back. But he had, there was no changing it now. Fox McCloud was the system's hero for effectively being able to fly and shoot, and they'd tossed him out on his ear after he gave them everything. The gross unfairness of it was bad enough. Blaming him for the death of James McCloud, his own childhood hero, was just rubbing salt into a wound at that point. Eight years had done nothing to temper his feelings on it. Hearing anything about what StarFox had done lately provoked a frothingly angry rant about who was the better pilot and that Fox was nothing more than a mutt at the end of the general's leash. Wolf swore up and down he would best the other man one day, and kill him. All he needed was one good fight where he wasn't effectively handcuffed in some manner or another.

The lupine was angry enough he didn't reply immediately on the comm. A few moments later he heard boot steps behind him. "Ah, Panther sees you didn't. Good. This one isn't familiar to us. Perhaps explanations are in order?"

Snarling, Wolf spun to face the black feline in front of him. "No, explanations are not in order. Just take my word for it. That one works , worked rather for Pepper."

There was an eyebrow raised at the man marginally in charge of the whole station. Slightly unhinged leaders never ended well. "You are certain of this?" The glare he got back was enough of an answer. "Alright then. Since that is the case, tell Panther how much shit we will get when this one goes missing." He nudged at the body with a boot.

"None, likely. No family to speak of, probably no friends. If he failed nobody was going to come rescue his ass."

"You mean a spy or undercover agent?" Disbelief was written all over Panther's expression.

"Kinda. He wasn't employed here, probably more like spec ops with no official existence, call it what you want. Check the id in his wallet, I wager he's got at least two or three in there."

Carouso bent down and in fact, grabbed the wallet and checked for dog tags, and was puzzled when he found not only the aforementioned IDs but a set of dog tags that had no name, no id, just a number on them and the emblem of the Cornerian Military. "Huh. Panther is not sure how you know this, but it seems that is a reasonable explanation."

Wolf grabbed the dog tags and peered at them. "Wouldn't have had these if he was undercover, so it's like I said. Lookit that, no id, just a number in case anyone ever wants to report back to the Cornerian's he's dead. As much as I'd like to brag." He tossed the bits of metal back at his teammate. "Melt the damn things down. I've got this."

**Sargasso Station - 9 Years ALW- 2 Months Prior to the Aparoid Invasion**

One gray ear twitched and swiveled hearing someone approaching behind him, as he was bent over a set of schematics for how the latest G-diffuser generation could be integrated into his ship. "Sir?" The underlying fear that he was used to hearing was mixed with something else that made Lord O'Donnell turn around without snarling about the interruption. This was important somehow and the mercenary already knew it.

His gaze rested on the much younger gray colored wolf who stood before him, dressed in the uniform that the station troops wore. Wolf didn't recognize him, although he looked like a mirror of Wolf at eighteen, except for the eyes that were pale blue. "Yes, what is it?"

"There's a message for you, sir. It came in with a supply run smuggled in from Corneria. We can't verify it's sender, but the pilot was told you would know." A hand was offering out a sheet of paper with the message typed upon it, with an envelope attached. The usually ill-tempered leader took the paper without saying anything, and scanned it over. Wolf blinked a few times before he read the two lines again.

It was a remarkably quiet and level voice that his leader addressed the messenger with. "Who else read this?"

"Only the pilot, myself, and the communications officer who tried to verify whether the name that sent it was who gave it to the pilot and ensured that the envelope contains only paper. We informed him it would be in his best interest to say absolutely nothing and offered the usual bribe to do so, and the usual threat if he doesn't. He has not left the station yet if that is not the result you want, Sir."

"No, no. That's fine. Carouso will be in charge. I'll be out for a few days possibly. I trust you won't relay the contents of this internally either." The last words had a growl underlying them, indicating that agreement was far from optional.

"No, Sir. Your wishes about personal items regarding yourself that may come to light were perfectly clear. I did however take the liberty of having the mechanics begin to prepare your ship and it's larger transport, on a priority one schedule. It should be ready before you get down there. "

Wolf raised an eyebrow at the kid, he wasn't used to much initiative from his employees. "Bucking for a promotion eh? I'll consider it when I get back." With that he turned and headed down the hallway at not a full run but a fairly fast pace. He heard Leon and Panther over his comm asking him what was up, to which he only replied that the more sane of his teammates would be holding the fort down for a bit. He didn't trust himself to try and explain this one away with some story at the moment.

He stepped onto the bridge of the larger transport, he didn't like flying it solo even with all the automated systems but there wasn't enough time to arrange anything else really. It could be a trap laid by General Pepper, but he strongly doubted it. The old dog could have used it anytime before now if he had thought of it, and not wasted so much of the militaries time and effort trying to chase StarWolf down when their paths crossed. Punching in the coordinates for as close as he dared take the Great Wolf to Corneria, he sank into the chair on the bridge and looked at the now slightly crumpled paper in his hand.

_"Lyra is asking for you. It would be best if you hurried, if you are able. - Martin"_

Wolf opened the envelope attached to it, and pulled out a photo of Martin, Lyra's foster father and Martin's wife, sitting next to a white wolf with purple eyes. He hadn't seen her,or a photo of her, since she was thirteen. Over half her life he hadn't been there, and she was still asking for him. She was taller than he'd imagined she would be, but just as delicate and frail looking as ever. He ran a finger over her image, wondering if she had been happy. Wolf would ask her, if he could.

Hours later, the Great Wolf appeared out of warp, Corneria visible but distantly in the center of the glass. Wolf shut down all of the systems, leaving on only just enough life support to keep the ship from becoming so cold he wouldn't be able to re-enter it, comm off, sensors off, everything except that little bit of heat and the dock doors. With luck, nothing would pick it up now, which he hoped would be the case as he strode to his Wolfen. The photo was tucked into the corner of the windshield there, as he closed the hatch and waited for the dock to open before setting the engines to max.

If he came in fast enough, with the ship's id response off, they'd know a ship came through but they wouldn't get a good look or scan of it. And coming in that fast, well, most pilots wouldn't be able to pull out of it. They'd crash. He aimed for the middle of nowhere and at the last possible moment wrenched the Wolfen out of it's dive, the nose of the ship glowing red and alarm systems starting to sound. The ship slowed a bit and angled into a more gradual descent as he adjusted his course to fly low towards the other side of the world from the city itself.

Corneria had become slack about their security, was the only conclusion Wolf could come up with. Then again, they had a decade of peace and it had been years since any wanted mercenary had even tried the stunt he just pulled. It had probably become unthinkable.

He set down on the outskirts of town and grabbed a tarp from the supplies in the cockpit and hastily threw it over the ship which at least obscured the design and coloration. Grabbing a long jacket and hat and wrestling them on he broke into a run into the small town that he remembered shockingly well for the length of time he'd not seen it. Wolf slowed down as he came to the door of Martin's house. The shutters had been painted a different color, and the yard had large trees now. Had someone seen him, they likely wouldn't have believed it, Wolf O'Donnell knocking politely on an ordinary door without yelling. A now past middle age shiba inu answered the door, and looked taken aback to see the mercenary on his doorstep but not panicked. "Ember?"

"Yeah. I got, your message. Is Lyra, um..is she.."

"Your sister is in the back room. She never moved out, not that I and Penny would have wanted her to." Grief filled Martin's eyes, although he had clearly expected this for a long time.

Wolf took his hat off after he stepped inside, and looked down towards his sister's caretakers. "You..and Penny have what you need, right? I should have asked years ago…..Pepp-." He cut himself off and started over. "It was to have been arranged, but I should have asked."

The short dog nodded "Yes, yes. We're fine. I've always had my job and certainly at least some things were arranged. We took her to the city several times to see if there was anything they could do for her but that is not an issue of money. You should go on and talk to her. It took my message longer than I expected to reach you, and I thought …it matters more than I thought it would."

Wolf simply nodded, ending the awkward conversation and stepped towards the door in the back of the house, and knocked softly as he opened the door. His ears swiveled forwards as he caught the quiet "hrrm?" that came from the center of the bed in the room. Paper lanterns with small LEDs decorated the tidy room, a statue of a dragon sat on a shelf and a flower pot with orchids sat on an empty desk. He sat down on the side of the bed where Lyra was propped up on a stack of pillows, eyes closed although she wasn't asleep. The movement got her attention and there was a weak yip of joy from the white lupine. "Ember! You came."

"Of course I came. You asked, just took bit for the message to find me." He reached out and brushed a bit of stray hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry I couldn't, well. just stop by."

The younger wolf bit her lip. "I know. You won't get caught for coming now will you?"

"Hell naw. I"m the great Lord O'Donnell. I'm way better than to get caught. Besides, these slackers didn't so much raise an eyebrow at how I got in. Not even those lapdogs StarFox would have noticed. Don't worry about it."

Lyra looked down. "I thought you might not want to either. What people say about you Ember..."

"Hang what the news says about me. Don't recall ever telling anyone I didn't still care about my little sister." Wolf flinched, he didn't want to have to justify or try to justify his actions to his sister. Not the ones in recent years anyhow.

"Why then? I wanted to see you, but..I don't understand why you fought against us in the war. Why you hated StarFox so much you killed the pilot you looked up to as a kid. That's not like you, or wasn't."

The mercenary sighed, and glanced at the door as if making sure Martin wasn't there. "I wasn't supposed to tell you, or anyone. But, it doesn't matter now if I tell you. I was with the military on this side Lyra. The whole time. Pepper had me embedded in Andross' army to try and find out how to stop him. I didn't shoot down James McCloud, I didn't even get into the air that day. It's a longer and more sordid story than that, but, after the war Pepper basically blew me off. Said I wasn't worth the trouble to try and clear my name no matter what I'd really done. If I caused him any trouble or came back, he'd take it out on you. I didn't hate StarFox then, but they're just Peppers errand boys though now. Kinda hard not to hate people who work for that general." Lyra gasped, a paw covering her mouth which was open as she stared at her older brother in disbelief. "You alright there? I swear it's true Lyra. I swear."

She nodded, looking a little aback at the revelation her own life had been used as a bargaining chip. "I had no idea. But..then Martin and Penny?"

"Are exactly who you think they are. They weren't involved in that part. Not at all."

There was an exhausted smile on her face. "I always knew you couldn't have been that , some day after I..later you can tell people and come home if you want." Violet eyes like his own begged him to forgive her for leaving, which was a look he just couldn't stand.

He turned so he could pull her close, as she let her head rest on his shoulder. "It's okay, powder-puff.I can't prove it anyways, nobody'd believe it. S'okay though, it was worth it. I got to fly, and know you were safe. You never did want to hear about planes and guns, and that's the only stories I have. Tell me one thing though. You're happy here, right? Things have been good?"

It took Lyra a long moment to manage to make herself speak again to reply, her voice was barely audible when she did. "Yeah, things are better here. Martin and Penny have always been really good to me. I just missed you. And mom."

"Me too, Lyra. Me too." Wolf gently stoked the fur behind her ear, glad her eyes were closed and she couldn't see the trails of wetted fur on his face. His voice cracked as he talked. "You must have been staying up way too late powder-puff. Silly thing."

She just grinned a little. "If I wasn't silly, you'd never smile." Her voice shifted slightly, sounding as if it was from a dream. Wolf's fur stood on end, hearing words clearly influenced by something else, his family's gift. His family's curse, which he had always been grateful was not his own. "War is coming Ember, no-one sees it yet, but it comes regardless. Pieces of everything crumble and the world breaks, they put it back together all wrong and it breaks again. Your rivals fate is tied to this world but your own is tied to his. This always has been, it always will be. The difference between the lie you live and the truth won't be enough to save either of you." There was a whimper from her as slumped against him. "Ugh..what'd..what did I say?"

He strained to hear her, and huffed after she finished, putting an arm around her. "Nothing bad this time." The lie sounded like truth, even to his own ears. "Shh, s'okay. Don't do that again, wears you out too much." Wolf looked down at the frail form of his sister, knowing if he didn't say things soon they wouldn't be said. Whatever her words had meant, he'd have to sort it out later. "I love you, little sister."

A soft mmhmm was her only reply, Wolf was sitting there still long after she wasn't awake any longer. Martin and Penny came in at one point and joined him in their daughter's room. Before dawn, they became the only people alive who had seen Wolf O'Donnell, Lord of Sargasso and Leader of StarWolf, break as he gently set down Lyra's lifeless body.

Across the sphere that was the main planet in the Lylat system, a notification landed on Pepper's desk that an unidentified ship had come in through the sensor net too fast to be scanned. Presumably crashed in the ocean, 96% chance of fatally destructive impact. The general shook his head, the days of hotshot pilots were past them but it was probably some kid trying to prove himself. Who had paid for it fairly heavily. He tossed it in the recycling under his desk and went about his day.

**Corneria City - General Pepper's Office - Day 0 - 12 Years ALW, 2 Years Post-Invasion**

Pepper was furious as he dealt with Senator Jerrard on the phone. "This is my military, senator, I find it astounding that I need to remind you. Yet again I order a simple retrieval of things left behind and yet again I find out that you refuse to approve a simple piece of paper that allows for outside Corneria's airspace. It's two men and one ship and you can't even spare me that?"

The female voice on the other end sighed, maintaining a far more level tone than the general. "Of something that's been there for over a decade. If it's waited that long it can wait a little bit longer. We're still rebuilding and repairing far more important things and I will not assume that we won't' be attacked again while we do so. So no, there will be no troops, not even two men and one old ship who get approval for this! Ask me again in a month, General. Better yet, make it three months. If you really wanted to win my favor it would be longer than that, but you seem to be loosing any semblance of patience these days. Speaking of, that outburst at the last meeting of the Senate makes me wonder when exactly the last time you took a vacation was." The last sentence was hardly out of concern for Pepper, not personally and he knew it. She was looking for an excuse to get him out of her hair, or call him in on a psych veal and get him ousted entirely.

Pepper could have left it there, were were it not for the fact that some of the Senators he frankly was starting to need the information to control. Some of it was damning enough that the age of the acts wouldn't matter. And that one damn loose end that was starting to keep him up at nights. No matter what he'd tried he hadn't managed to get rid of Wolf O'Donnell in the years since deciding to let him leave the bar. _This is what you get for not just shooting him where he sat._ It wasn't actually Wolf that drove his new worries though. It was Krystal. He may have had a telepath blocking device, many of his Senator allies and some who weren't also did. They were absurdly expensive though, and hard to get ahold of even with the right money and connections, meaning no mercenary would have one. As much as Wolf was rivals with Fox, they'd met before and they'd meet again. One of these days Krystal might find out something from Wolf that she shouldn't. Once that happened, Pepper knew she'd tell McCloud. Who was like his father, unlikely to relent on any given pursuit until it was proven wholly impossible or got him killed. Add in the fact that if Fox ever did find out where that data store was he could probably get it easily.

The solution then, hit him. He had the funds personally to hire someone to retrieve the data box. Why not solve the problem by sending StarFox after the same thing before anyone would know what it was? It would be long gone by the time Wolf might run into them again. With that in mind he managed to sound far calmer than he had been a moment ago. Pepper smirked, knowing the paperwork had been filed but he'd come in anyways. "Three months ago, although I appreciate the deep concern you apparently have for my wellbeing Senator Jerrard. I'm sure I could come up with more useful things to do for those two men than what I was proposing, however you do realize the budget cuts rather undermine that mutual goal of ours of security. Rather hard to send them on anything worthwhile if we don't' have the right things to send them with."

The concern over maintaining his position, and it's power had become an obsession. No matter what hour of day or night, Cornelius was trying to figure out who might be on the path to trying to unseat him. Jerrard currently topped the list, damn that lupine. How she managed to get elected to the Senate, despite what she was, he certainly didn't understand. She'd managed to climb through various committees and accompanying duties until she was hands on involved somehow in his military. No family to leverage, no dark secrets he could dig up, either the woman was actually honest and clean or was damn good at burying things.

The senator sighed, she suspected something was up when Pepper agreed with her but didn't know what. "Yes, yes I know. The budget for next year will be in the works soon. If you're willing to drop this and any other foolish things and focus _solely_ on real problems, I'll see what I can do."

"But of course, Senator. Priorities and all. Have a good day." She bid him the same before he hung up the phone and reached for the keyboard, tapping out a message to StarFox without bothering to read the reply they'd sent about the banquet.


	10. Pitch Black

**Author's Notes:** Took me a little longer than I thought to get back caught up to where we left off in Chapter 4 (wow, chapter 11? Good lord.) I really adore any feedback (good or bad) on this one, as I've already decided that I will be both revising this story once it's done, and either expanding on some side ideas that I had while writing this or writing a second related story. I'd like to take a moment and seriously thank everyone who has reviewed, or pmed me with comments about the story and my writing. I love trying to improve, but the fact it's been encouragement on all counts so far has been just amazing to me. I plan to find out if the folk who have pmed me are okay being named at the end in thank yous!

**July 5, 2014 Update:** Formatting fixes. A major part of the scene between Wolf and his former teammates got altered here. I decided to put Carouso in a very different light. More attempts at bringing the rest of the characters to life a bit more, and alterations to fit with earlier chapter revisions.

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_"It's always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black."_ ― Paul Newman

**Zoness - Day 0 - 2 Years After the Aparoid Invasion**

The only sound in the apartment was the rapid click of keys being hit on a keyboard. The green light of an old style terminal reflected off the vulpine typing on the laptop, as he wound his way through a virtual maze. Flying had been his first love but computers and the programming or hacking thereof had always been a close second. Jared, as the first of his ID cards read, reached absently for the now cold cup of coffee beside him. His mind was focused on the display in front of him enough he didn't notice, he hadn't noticed it had been twenty-eight hours since he logged in. Blue eyes scanned the list of data stores tied to the particular user ID he'd queried for. These had never come up in his mercenary work with them, he hadn't known that they had ever utilized portable secure data stores until a year ago. His contact hadn't even meant to tell him, or had assumed he'd already known that they existed, and that while other divisions had moved to more modern technology the General had always and still used them. Jared wasn't sure which it was, but it didn't matter. 12 months of obtaining small tidbits on the side had been required to get enough information to access this far into the Cornerian network without getting caught. Enough layers of security, passwords, and dialing what were probably forgotten and disused connections were needed to actually manage the hack to get to the management system for the stores, not the stores themselves.

He frowned most of them were inside the main Cornerian base, and there was no telling which ones would contain anything useful to him. The vulpine was beginning to think this was a fruitless waste of his time, but so many dead ends over the years led him to keep looking through the list, and paused on a particularly interesting entry. Ears and head tilted, confused at what the screen told him. That name shouldn't have been in this system. Wolf O'Donnell (Who apparently had a different first name. Wait a second, a lupine named _Ember_? The kid that went to flight school with his son for a year was the leader of StarWolf?) had worked for Andross, not Corneria. Why was his name listed as an authorized user here ? Alongside Cornelius Pepper's and a couple of others he didn't recognize. "Did you sell me out all those years ago before I even left on that mission, you old bastard?"

Snarling involuntarily he tapped a few more keys to get the location of that store, fully expecting it to be destroyed or located deep within the central base which was well beyond his reach. The aging fox muttered to himself. "I'll be damned. Finchina? It's a ghost town of a base, never mind most of the planet. I wonder if that's where you figured no-one would ever look. Makes it all the more interesting." Scribbling the information down on a scrap of paper he reached for his cell phone. The idea of going and fetching it himself was tempting, terribly tempting. But James knew that he'd need someone on the access list, or he'd have to hack the store itself. That was daunting, despite his ability to get into things he shouldn't. Pepper and O'Donnell might both have been on his shit list, but one of them would do much of anything for a price.

When Remus picked up, Jared realized the man must have been asleep, the voice on the other end sleepy and muffled sounding. "Old man, you better have a good reason for calling me at this hour. Do you ever sleep?!"

"Sorry, I forgot what time it was. Look, I need to know a couple things and then I may have a job for you."

"Can this not wait till morning?" The weasel might have been a middle man, but he preferred to be a middle man during daytime hours.

"No, this cannot wait till morning. What day is it by the way?" _That display clock can't be right._ Jared was logging out of systems and the layers of redirection he'd put between himself and his target.

"Thursday. Jared, are you alright?" Fondness wasn't a particular habit of the weasels, but Jared had helped him make some damn good money along the way and he was loathe to see that end.

"Yeah, but I'm probably going to crash for a while after this. Didn't realize this took so long."

"What took so long? You are not making any sense." Remus sighed, he'd worked with Jared long enough to realize that occasional bizarre behavior was to be expected. He'd go off on one thing or another obsessively, the spooky part was usually no matter how little sense it initially made, Jared's information turned out to be right.

"Don't worry about it. Look, so, what the hell ever became of Wolf O'Donnell?"

"You call me up at three in the morning for that? I thought it was common knowledge anyways. Guess not. After that whole mess where he randomly showed up during the invasion and saved StarFox's collective tails he went back to Sargasso. Except sentimentality doesn't work well for that position, his rivals pressed in all the harder and painted him as unreliable. A guy who would know swore that sometimes O'Donnell would wind up saying strange things to thing air as if someone else was there every so often. He threatened anyone who overheard into silence when he realized he'd done it though. I don't think that made public rumor at the time, but it probably didn't help him. You know as well as I do right after a war when nobody gets overthrown theres too many weapons and not enough buyers. Six months after the mess they decided to crack down on smuggling too, napped a ton of the folks who dealt with Sargasso. Lack of income, too many people eager to take his place, you know how this works Jared. Not even his team stayed together more than another three months after that. The station itself more or less became irrelevant afterwards, Fenrix Lysin took over and couldn't keep order, far as I know it's been abandoned. Since then? Wolf's name shows up in job bids every once in a while, nothing of the sort I arrange. A few contacts of mine have used him when nobody else was stupid or crazy enough to take the job. O'Donnell does still come through though, according to them, but most people want teams, not solo pilots and that bounty from Corneria keeps him off any legit jobs. Now why do you ask?"

"So how desperate do you think the man is?"

"Oh for fucks sakes Jared. I don't know for sure, _if_ he's still trying to fly and _if_ he's not dead, probably pretty freaking desperate."

"Good, I want to hire him. Find out where he is."

"You're shitting me. Jared, do you realize how absurd what you're saying is?"

"Yeah, I do. Trust me, I completely and utterly do. Look, there's a job and he's going to be the only one who can get at what I want. He won't do it though unless he's a little desperate, it's going to possibly draw some attention he doesn't want." Jared wasn't concerned at all about the other mercenary having any qualms about being on the opposite side from Corneria. Whatever deal Wolf had made with the General once, there was a not shabby bounty on his head from the same.

"Fine. Fine. You are one crazed fox I hope you know. I think I see why so many people think you look like James McCloud, you're just as batshit as he was supposed to be too."

Jared smirked, the irony of what Remus was saying terribly amusing to the sleep deprived man. "So you have said on more than one occasion. I'll send you an encrypted message with details for him and the offer."

"Alright. But _that_ part I am absolutely waiting till morning. I'm not going to go calling up crazed mercenaries before dawn, or breakfast. I'll call you, not the other way around."

"Thank you Remus." Jared heard the other end of the phone click and grinned as he set the cell phone down.

**Kew – Day 8 – 01:56 Local Time**

Wolf paced the floor of the hangar. In his wildest dreams, he never imagined that something like this would fall into his lap. _This has been sitting there for twelve years, under the project name I was in. I never even knew it was there…and it has everything I could possibly want to manipulate that lying scum who fancies himself a leader._ The lupine laughed at the irony of it all, before it turned into a coughing fit he muffled into his sleeve.

First order of business was to make a copy of the data, he had no idea who had hired him and there was no chance he was going to lose his chance at revenge. Placing the box next to the ship he set it up to work on that while he pondered his next move. Remus was an intermediary, and the mercenary would love to know who the end client was. It wasn't often he wanted to stick his nose into such things, but then again it wasn't often it got personal either. There wasn't really a way to get at that information though, which was more the shame. Which left really only the question of exactly how Wolf was going to put that damn dog Pepper in his place. He would have easily lost himself in that weighty question when he heard a female voice behind him.

_"Ember, don't lose yourself to this. Did you decide to do the right thing during the last war and then lose Sargasso for nothing?"_

He startled, spinning around although by now he knew that there was no-one he'd see there. The voice was his sister's, and it unnerved him every time he heard it. Was he just cracking up like people believed? The lupine didn't think so, okay yeah he might have a heavy hand with the drink and all but hallucinating dead sober was a far cry from that. Which left really, no logical explanations he could come up with, no matter how many times over the years he tried. Other than that Lyra had been more special than he'd known or realized. The notion still didn't help settle him about it when it happened. Worried thoughts were still playing in his head while his eyes scanned the hangar and noticed the light on the door had clicked off. As if power had been cut to that, and only that. Drawing his blaster, he ducked behind the Wolfen to put it between him and the door.

The door which didn't open, oddly. Footsteps that made no noise behind the lupine didn't attract his attention.

_"Look behind you."_ The same invisible voice of his sister came again and he turned blaster out first and firing a shot anyways. At worst he'd hit the wall and at this point he wash't really thinking about that anyways. A reptilian hiss came from now his left as a green lizard dressed in all black leapt out of Wolf's immediate aim. A familiar green lizard. "Leon! You asshole!" Wolf had never really expected loyalty from his former team, but it was still mildly disappointing to be proven right on that count. Then again, it was a hell of a bounty on his head.

"I can't decide if you are getting old and slow to not expect the door to be a trap, or still quite good to have heard me at all. Either way, I am a _mercenary_ just like you. There's no asshole in this, just bounties."

"Right, and that's why you didn't shoot me from a distance? No, you sick fuck. I know how you take your kills. I'm not going to be one of them today." Wolf kept his back to the ship, it meant one less place he had to watch as he tried to steady his slightly shaking arms. He really did know exactly what Leon did to his targets before they mercifully, finally died and he really did not want to experience any part of it.

"Whatever you say, _Lord_ O'Donnell" The sarcasm in Leon's voice was followed by an eerie chuckle. The lizard never really laughed, and rarely smiled. He probably wasn't even smiling now which made his occasional chuckles or snickers all the more disturbing. The think of metal next to Wolf caught his attention and he saw the gas canister rolling towards him. _Oh bloody hell._ He kicked it as far away from himself as he could.

"That isn't going to save you!" Leon hopped up onto the ship's wing and tried to sink the blade in his hand down into Wolf's right shoulder so he would drop the blaster or simply be unable to shoot. Wolf ducked under the same wing and then turned direction, trying to get to the other side of the ship and hop up into the cockpit.

Polwaski had been crazy, and ruthless, but never stupid. He knew what Wolf was up to and changed his own direction accordingly. As the lupine came up from under the wing, Leon swiped again at him taking a good chunk out of the side one of the tall grey ears and eliciting a howl from his target. "Poor little wulfie. Games of chase annoy me. Sit still and this will go …well faster is a relative term after all."

Wolf snarled back at him "Fuck you, psychopath." Leon was quick, and the couple of blaster rounds that were fired missed, narrowly but that didn't matter now. Where the hell had he gone? The damn hangar wasn't that big! Taking cautious steps, O'Donnell got where his back was to a corner, it wasn't the greatest move but Leon wasn't likely to shoot him from a distance. When they had worked together, Wolf had learned that when he wasn't in the air Leon loved to make a kill personal. Terrifying, but seriously flawed as an approach, but the reptile was far too nuts to tell that to.

Unfortunately that assumption was only half right, another howl coming from the lupine as a blaster shot, half powered but still agonizing, hit his hand and his own weapon went skittering on the floor. _Well, that's going to be lovely now isn't it?_ Wolf didn't dive for the blaster, his attacker would be on him too quickly before he got a shot off, so he waited. The lizard was swaggering closer, confident in his ability to take down his former leader. "Well well, Shame you didn't go for it there, I do so like getting a good face kick or three in."

Desperation and lack of options led Wolf to do the possibly stupidest, or smartest, thing he'd done in years. Despite the fact Leon held the knife, Wolf knew he had his armored vest on. With all the ferocity his kind was known for, he leapt at the green skinned man who wanted him dead. Which was the last thing Polwaski had been anticipating, his target to just leap at him in close quarters. The two men tumbled on the floor, the knife trying to sink into Wolf's shoulder only to be skidded off by his vest, and then promptly thrown across the room. Words were replaced by feral snarls and hisses as blows were exchanged and holds were broken along with a few bones on each side. Leon squirmed out of the lupine's grasp and managed to get on the other side of the ship standing in front of it.

Instead of chasing, Wolf hopped up onto the wing again and reached into the cockpit hitting the ships lasers. The sound of it hitting the would be assassin/bounty hunter in front of them was really, kind of bizarre to his ears. He'd never heard it given it was always fired in the vacuum of space or at most, high altitude with comm chatter, yells and the sound of engines over them. The sound of the body hitting the wall before the structure itself absorbed the rest of the blast meant for another fighter and created large cracks and a small pile of scorched chunks. _Well, so much for staying here. Or coming back given the property damage I also just caused._ It would be a good hour before anyone showed up though, despite the damage to the hangar door. They might want to make him pay for it or take it out of his hide, or more likely claim the bounty themselves once they saw him but nobody here was going to care quite enough about a door to risk getting shot in an active firefight.

Wolf took a moment, sitting down on the wing trying to catch his breath and only coughing for several minutes in the attempt which made his cracked ribs hurt enough that he found himself flat on his back instead of sitting up. Finally managing to sit back up he crawled into the cockpit and grabbed the medkit he had stashed there. He reached up and flinched as he ran a paw over his ear. _Damn._ Blood was all over the fur in his gray paws when he was finished bandaging it off, and he closed his eyes for five minutes only to open them hearing the hacked door open. "Goddamnit. I can't get a break today." The spare blaster under his seat was out and aimed towards the second intruder before he registered who it was.

"It seems Panther was right in thinking this might be where you were, and very wrong in thinking there was a tool room before the main hangar." The black cat stood where he was, and kept his hands well away from his weapon. Wolf always had thought the feline was the most sane of the trio that once made up his team.

"Cute. Really cute. You and Leon together up against me is something I really didn't expect. Got anything to say before I send you to join him?"

"Leon's here? Panther isn't working with him. "

"Was here. I suppose what little is left of him still is. So it's coincidence you both found me at the same damn time? Seriously? Okay fine sure the universe does hate me that much. I'll buy that. Out with it then, cat."

"There are at least four other bounty hunters within ten minutes of here. Someone here figured it out and sold you out. Panther couldn't exactly call you over their channels to warn you. Shooting you was not my intention. Mercenary is one thing, forgetting how many times another man saved your life is unacceptable."

Wolf paused and looked at the feline. Panther was good for his word, unlike Leon. Four more on their way meant he had to be gone now. Of all his teammates over the years, the cat was the only one who he'd halfway liked. _"_Thank your lucky stars that I halfway liked you and know you happen to have a strange sense of honor for a mercenary, or I'd never believe it. You've got to be joking me though, nobody gets sold out like that here. It would fuck the entire way this place works." He lowered his gun and looked at his former wingman. "Seems we're even then. Not that I ever thought you'd really think you owed me to begin with."

"Reasonability suits you, O'Donnell. Nobody's had a bounty like that. It probably won't work well for them in the long run but someone wanted their cut. There's no joke. " The black furred feline was glancing towards the door. "Why don't you get going and Panther will be on his way? Warning you is one thing, dying for you is also not acceptable." The lupine nodded once and with that, the black cat turned and darted down the hallway.

"Fucking hell" The last remaining person in the hangar muttered to himself, as he shut the cockpit and decided that this was getting all too crowded for his tastes. He had a weasel to contact and a drop to make before he found a bolt hole somewhere else.

**Zoness - Day 9 - 07:32 Local Time**  
The dirt and soot that accompanied a hangar, even a private one, made it an odd place to see a man in a suit. Remus stood with his arms folded, he didn't like to make exchanges in such an obvious place, but O'Donnell had meant it when he'd said take it or leave it. The bounty on his head was high enough even someone as connected as Remus didn't know where he was planning to go to try and avoid it. Insisting on things with a man like that was liable to end badly on a good day, and it was far from a good day to be the wanted lupine.

Remus unfolded his arms and made sure that the hidden gun in his pocket was there. Insurance, of a sort. Not that it would do him much good but he felt better with it there in case something went wrong. He at least looked calm, years of dealing with all manner of unsavory characters tended to weed out the people who couldn't manage it or at minimum, fake it.

Wolf opened the cockpit and hopped out, landing in a crouch with the datastore in one hand before he stood up and looked at Remus with suspicion. Traces of blood still stained his fur, a snarl on his face and a blue metal box in one hand. The lupine stood up, towering over the weasel in height and build and took several heavy steps towards him. His voice seemed more gravelly and rough than it had over the comm. "I ought to just shoot you where you stand, given the bounty on my head for this."

Remus blanched a little. "First off, I'm just the messenger. I don't know the details nor the reasons behind it. Secondly, you could but that would just mean you don't get paid now in addition to having an absurd bounty on your head."

"Lucky for you I suppose. You get this when you pay me. In cash. Not exactly able to walk into a bank right now for anything else."

Clearing his throat, Remus reached into a pocket and handed over the credit stick and waited while Wolf checked it. "You'll find the remainder of what we owe you there, all of it having been routed through other channels and will not trace to myself, my employer, or you." One purple eye and a blank glass lens stared at his contact harshly, before the box was set down and the mercenary took a step back and only grunted slightly and tucked the stick away.

Slightly sweaty paws picked the box up. "Well then, seems you've done what we've asked and it's all settled. I'll wish you luck and be on my way."

"Yeah, sure. Don't get caught with that, kid. Corneria's a hell of an enemy to have." The ship was gone before Remus could really think of an answer. Kid? He wasn't that much younger than the wolf.

Curious eyes rested on the box. "And you, are a most interesting thing. What possibly could be worth hiring him over that also interests Jared?" Being a middle man meant keeping your nose out, but this had all gone so strangely that he really couldn't resist.

A quick text message to Jared that yes, he'd still come to the "party" this evening. Once both he and the datastore were safely tucked in his own apartment he opened it up, and hooked it up to his tablet which had no network connections. _Should be safe enough that way._

The encryption proved to be something that Remus couldn't guess at and a half hour later he gave up on it and pulled the cord to his tablet out. The ermine never noticed the now red status indicator on the bottom of the case, nor did he know that such devices were set to try and call home over any available network, satellite, or cell connection if tampered with.

The only thing he noticed was the sudden entrance of several men in full armor with no insignia on their uniforms literally beating down his door hours later, right before he went to go meet Jared. "Whoa, whoa whoa, whats join on guys?" There was no reply as a red dot centered itself on his forehead and the weasel fell to the floor.

An hour later, Jared knew Remus was late and the vulpine didn't like it. Something was going on, or off, he knew it. He just didn't know how he knew it or what it was. Half an hour after meeting time came and went, Jared decided he'd go for a walk. A walk by the apartment building he knew his middleman lived in. As he wandered down the street, he noticed it got very quiet as he approached the right block. Which probably had a great deal to do with the unmarked vans outside of the apartment.

_Shit. Remus, what the hell did you do to get caught?_ The fox ducked into the nearest building and headed out the back way before weaving a very indirect path back to his own place, checking to see if he was followed the whole way. All of that work, and time, for nothing. There was an eerie howl of frustration from the vulpine, as he kicked over the table in the small apartment.

**Corneria - Day 9 - 23:53 Local Time**

"Was that really necessary?" The voice of Senator Jerrard sounded extremely displeased, as she leaned both hands on Pepper's desk and was looking at the General as if he had reached a new level of crazy.

"Standard protocol when any of our secure data reports back home as tampered with." Pepper mentally smirked, but outwardly he looked perfectly neutral about the conversation. "I should hope we still follow those."

"So this wasn't a pathetic excuse to deploy your latest pet project and get something you wanted without Senate approval for interplanetary operations."

The general let out a deep sigh as if dealing with a petulant child. "Senator Jerrard, if you came here to accuse me of things you could at least look up *what* the usual course of action is for such things before you start in. Really now, I will have my secretary retrieve the documentation on them for you and you can see for yourself. I planned nothing of the sort. It deeply worries me that's your reaction to this whole affair."

Dani Jerrard narrowed her eyes at the General. "Coincidence is rarely just that, in my experience. Have your secretary do that, and at least *try* to realize that our influence on various planets in the system is not what it is here. It would be _wonderful_ if you could possibly inform the senate of these things at least thirty seconds before you enact them. Several civilians on Zoness saw the vans and have been freaking out thinking that someone might be attacking again."

"Which was hardly my intent. Spin it with the media any way you like, I'll vouch for it."

Jerrard scowled and turned on her heels to leave. _I will not kiss your ass for basically foisting this mess off on me and then offering your help. Argh! Why can't we make you retire already!?_


	11. Captive

**Author's Notes: **Many thanks to the reviewers and those who have pmed me with advice or encouragement! Score! So, I think I owe a small apology. This really should have been the last section of Chapter 11, 11 got long and then I wrote this. I'm not sure this really deserves it's own chapter, but, I wrote it anyways.

My day job is also getting seriously busy, I have some vacation coming up which I am hoping to write at least one, if not two chapters during, but after that updates will likely be less frequently posted.

**July 5, 2014 Update:** Minor revisions to bring things in line with earlier chapters.

* * *

_"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." - Gloria Steinem_

**Macbeth - Aboard Great Fox - Day 11 - 17:45 Local****Time**

Fox watched with interest from the captain's seat on the bridge of the Great Fox as the team went over the information they currently had about Wolf O'Donnell's whereabouts. Grainy stills from an ancient security camera system showed the inside of a sooty bar, the figure of interest to them sitting in the back although with the sun glasses and solid grey fur it was hard to tell if it was the mercenary in disguise, or someone else entirely. "I don't know. Do we have access to any audio or video, Slippy?"

"Unfortunately no. That's everything."

Fox peered at the screen and tapped his fingers against the control panel, and looked at the rest of the team. "I do think that looks like him. I say it's worth looking into."

"If by that you mean he looks like shit even for him, I seriously thought the guy looked older and a lot more scrawny than O'Donnell."

"You must not have gotten a good look at him on Finchina. That aside, we've got the layout for the area around BlackFlats and layouts for the bar and town. I can almost guarantee you I know where he hid his ship. Problem is, how do we get him to talk to us if that is him?" Fox swished his tail, looking thoughtful and then glanced over at Krystal.

The blue fox tapped a finger against her lips for a moment. "He did save your life, and ours, the last time we saw him. So I wouldn't be so worried about him just shooting because it's us. The problem would be if he thought we were there to kill him. If we make it obvious that's not our intention, I think it'd work."

"You sure you wanna be seen bringing in Wolf with that bounty on his head? If we don't turn him, or his body, over to Pepper in short order, he's gonna find out about it. I know he saved us, but he kinda lives in this system too. That's not exactly altruistic. I'm not convinced he's worth sticking our necks out so far for. I'm not saying we should shoot the guy, money or no but still." Falco folded his arms, frowning.

"Look, I just want to know what the hell is going on. Nothing about this seems right, and he's the only person we can ask." Fox knew it wasn't the greatest idea, but the alternatives seemed worse. Ignoring this whole mess and letting someone else kill him without finding out what was going on seemed more wrong than he wanted to deal with. "Besides, at worst, can't we just say it was the wrong guy or he escaped?"

"At the cost of our reputation. Sure." There was a sigh and eyeroll from the avian.

"Reputation as what, bounty hunters? We don't even do that kind of work normally, you know that. I don't particularly care if we're known as great pilots and terrible assasins. If we say we wanted Pepper to reconsider the death only bounty, is anyone really going to doubt us over that? C'mon we're the good guys aren't we?"

"What if whatever he got into this time was really over the line Fox? He did fly for the man that killed your father. " Peppy spoke up from the back of the room, having been silent in most of the discussions about it.

"Then we ask Pepper to reconsider the death only bounty and hand him over alive. I'm not telling you he's a great guy I'd like to save, but I am telling you I don't feel right killing him unless he brings it to that kind of fight first. Besides, how else are we going to find out whats going on, and that _is_ what we're doing no?" Green eyes glanced at each of his teammates as they nodded. "Okay then, Peppy you stay with Great Fox, Slippy I"ll tell you where his ship is, if it's Wolf, and I'm going to send you to disable it. Krystal, Falco, you're both with me going into town.

* * *

**Macbeth - Town of BlackFlats - Day 11 - 18:23 Local****Time**

Workers drifted in and out of the bar, although the crowd had thinned out as the evening had worn on. Macbeth was still as it had always been, a world that was mostly mined for it's resources with a few cities and towns to support living there. Most of the people who lived there dreamed of a better life elsewhere. Far from government eyes other than the shipments that went back and forth, there were few visitors to the world. There was a visitor in the bar tonight, at a table in the corner which he had taken up in the past couple of days. Keeping to himself, Wolf O'Donnell had tried his best not to be recognizable. Sunglasses had replaced the cybernetic gear which was far too recognizable, as was the eyepatch. Really it was kind of nice not to be dealing with the constant headache that tech gave him. Grey dye had masked the usually white markings he had on his head and chin, and worn workers clothes replaced most of his usual attire. He still had the armored vest on and his weapons on him, but those were all carefully hidden. So far none had given him a second glance, the people here were generally too tired and wrapped up in their own sorrows to bother looking too close at someone they didn't know.

Another shot of cheap whiskey was thrown back, the taste and burn weren't noticeable after a few of those. Logically Wolf knew he shouldn't have been drinking at all yet he did so anyways. The bounty on his head left him with few options, he wasn't even entirely sure what those options long term were at this point. If the pilot was honest with himself, there was no future for him, there were no options left than trying to do what he was doing right now. Scrape by somewhere like everyone else and hope not to be found out. His gaze drifted over to some of the other patrons of the bar, the miners were easy to spot given their dirty clothes and worn appearance even on the youngest of them. It was a job that would take almost any warm body though. Wolf leaned back against the wall with his chair, muffling a few coughs into his sleeve.

Joining them was inevitable at this point, if he didn't just decide to take to the skies for one last time and give whoever would kill him hell in the process.

The idea of living without flying made him fairly sure he'd choose the latter, as almost all mercenaries did in the end. Except he wasn't sure he'd manage either option at the moment. For now he could wait it out and live on what Remus had paid him. _Thank…well thank whatever for small mercies I suppose._ The lupine was simply exhausted and pushed too far already. His ear throbbed, his leg still stung and wasn't healing as fast as it should, his chest hurt when he coughed, there wasn't a part of him that didn't ache or feel shot glass set down empty on the table and he leaned his chair back against the wall and closed his eyes for just a moment.

Krystal stepped into the bar first, looking around both with her eyes, and her sixth sense. She gave a motion to Fox and Falco who were behind her that they had been right. Wolf hadn't noticed their entry, still leaning back when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Inwardly cussing for not having noticed the person come up, he snarled audibly at them. _What now? I swear if it's bounty hunter already I'm just going to start shooting anyone who comes near me._

He opened his one good eye to see who had grabbed him, stumbling to his feet and found it was the blue-furred vixen. "Well, fuck. Where you are the rest of those numbskulls are not far behind." Indeed, there was Falco and Fox walking over towards him, old man hare and the annoying frog he couldn't see but they were probably somewhere about. Wolf was drunk and already on edge, he lost his temper without waiting for the other side to say or do anything. Gathering what energy he had left, he quickly turned the tables on the vixen in front of him. She was strong, but not as strong as he was and he had a significant size and weight advantage on her in close quarters. Wolf had Krystal held with her arms behind her, one arm keeping her pinned against one of the walls of the bar the other holding his blaster. The other two members of her team both had weapons aimed at him, as the entire bar fell into silence. Somewhere in the scuffle the sunglasses had fallen to the floor. One purple eye and one blind opaque looking blue one met Fox's, tension filling the space between. _How dare you assholes ambush me on the ground. _On Finchina that was different, they hadn't expected him. This, he took personally despite the bounty. What did heroes like them need with more money than they probably already had? It was a worn voice that broke the silence. "And here I was thinking that I wouldn't live to regret saving your tail, McCloud. I guess you don't have the decency to at least kill me in the sky after all."

Krystal glanced over her shoulder towards Fox, her voice echoing in his head. _He's drunk, Fox, and he thinks we're here to kill him anyways. He's confused, and may well do something he normally wouldn't._

"Calm down. I'd really rather not shoot you, actually. Lets not do anything more drastic or stupid than already is going on." The vulpine was frowning, the look on his face didn't match what his target was expecting. No, the fox clearly was upset the plan here had gone all wrong.

"What the heck? Pepper puts out a death only bounty and you're his little lackeys, but you're _not_ going to shoot me?" Confusion crossed the lupine's face, as he glanced from one teammate to the other. "Oh, right, you guys are too squeaky clean for that. It'll just be a life sentence in some forgotten hellhole of a prison." He tensed, ready to start the gunfight that would end badly for all sides when his focus shifted to a point behind the team members, causing Falco to turn his head and find nothing but empty space. _Fate, Ember._ The white lupine standing next to the pilots of StarFox reminded him, looking calm as she ever did. The gray furred lupine already knew he had lost, even if he shot the vixen now, he'd be dead before her body hit the floor whether StarFox has originally come here to kill him or not. He'd have done the same thing in their boots. Apparently that wasn't supposed to be, Lyra was looking at him clearly prompting him to surrender. _The one thing I don't do. None of the O'Donnells ever did Lyra, except our father._ "Dammit." Wolf would do it anyways, and once he'd decided that he watched Lyra nod at him and then vanish back into the crowd that had gathered.

Fox hadn't figured out how to respond, he really didn't want to get into this here in public. The leader wanted Krystal to use her gift to try and smooth things over but both of them suddenly seemed to have their attention elsewhere. Krystal felt the presence of _something_ in the room seemingly step out from nothingness and then vanish again. No-one else seemed to notice, except the man pinning her to the wall. She could sense the sudden change in what the lupine, anger faded to despair and a sense of resignation and loss, and it was his gravely voice that broke the momentary silence yet again. "Fuck you McCloud. I want a last request, and I'll let her go."

Fox glanced at the telepath and then Falco, and just gave a nod to the lupine. "I'm all ears."

"Somethin I want you to see. If I'm going to die or be locked away forever for the so called good of Corneria and Lylat, I'd like you to know exactly what kind of world you're fighting for. It's on my ship though. You swear to me you'll actually pay attention and look, and I won't fight you. But you fucking swear on your father's name, pup. Or I will take out everyone I can with me. You owe me better than that anyways."

"Alright Wolf. I'll swear to you, on my father's name we'll look and take it seriously. Now let her go."

The lupine loosened his grip on the female he had pinned to the wall, who promptly leapt out of his reach in a hurry. Letting go of the trigger of his weapon, he sat it down on the table beside him, choking back a cough. There was no struggle, or even snarky commentary as the handcuffs snapped onto his rest of the bar watched in stunned silence as team StarFox led Wolf O'Donnell out quietly, the feared mercenaries' head hung and tail almost dragging on the floor.

Once they were aboard the GreatFox, Wolf stood in the dock with his hands still cuffed behind him, while the majority of the StarFox team watched with disbelief on their faces. His pockets were already emptied, his spare knives found and every useful thing he had on him neatly arranged in a box where he couldn't get to it. "What, pup? You didn't think I'd keep my word? You ought to know me better than that. " The gray-furred pilot sighed, and leaned against the bare wall behind him. "Data's on my ship, what I want you to see that is. I stowed it.."

"In the cavern outside of town that used to be the mine entrance and was closed after a cave in. Yeah, we found it actually. Slippy will have it here in an hour or so." Fox answered, eyeing the mercenary warily.

"Well aren't you smart then pup? Figuring out I'd use the one, and only, hiding spot for a ship within three days walk. So do I have to stand here the entire time and wait for the pond-reject or can I at least sit down?"

"Hey, that's my friend you're talking about. Watch your muzzle, or somebody might break it for you." Falco bit back, nobody outside the team got to make fun of anyone in it. It was like family that way. A very violent, somewhat dysfunctional family.

"Cool it, Falco. You realize he's just trying to get on your nerves and you're letting him." Fox rolled his eyes, significantly calmer than his fellow pilot before turning his attention back to their captive. "You really aren't in any position to want to antagonize him, you know." The vulpine walked Wolf through the main doors and down a hallway, pausing to key in the code to the sliding door of one of the rooms aboard the transport ship. "This is where you stay while you are here. There's a two way comm system as part of the room here, it's always on since there's no unit here for you to activate it or disassemble. ROB will be monitoring that at all hours, so if you need something you can ask, if it's reasonable he'll get one of us." There was a click as the handcuffs came off, McCloud ready just in case, although he really wasn't expecting tricks at this point.

"Sure, whatever pup." O'Donnell stepped into the bare room and took a glance around. It was clean at least, and far more spacious than his room aboard his own transport had been. He sank down onto the mattress that was on the bed and said nothing until he heard the door shut again, expecting to be hauled up again in an hour.

The wall beside the bed felt cool against his pounding head and there was a taste in his mouth as if something had died there. "Eugh." He straightened back up and blinked a few times, realizing that he must have fallen asleep. Stretching out he found someone had put a couple of bottles of water. A blanket fell to his side while he felt and heard several joints and muscles pop back into place. Wolf wondered just how much time had passed. That was odd, there should have been at least questions an hour after he sat down, if not an outright interrogation. "The hell is going on here?"

Grabbing one of the water bottles he opened the cap and sniffed it, taking a small taste. If it was poisoned or drugged it wasn't by any means he could detect. The sound of the door sliding paused him and he instinctively moved so his back was towards the wall. Fox stepped into the room "You're up. Good. We're leaving MacBeth shortly but I was hoping to get some answers before we took off."

Wolf rubbed a paw over his eyes , glaring at his rival and captor. "Right. Morning? What time is it, or are you playing those games where you fuck with my head so I can't keep track of it?" A dry tongue ran over his jaws, as he debated whether he actually wanted to drink what they'd given him.

An eyebrow raised on the vulpine's face at the accusation. "It's 6 am, local. You can see for yourself shortly. And drink the water, it's not poisoned. Given how much you were apparently drinking last night I imagine you want it. " Distrust was still painted all over O'Donnell's expression, until Fox sighed and picked up the other water bottle and opened it and took a drink before setting it beside the other. "Satisfied?"

Wolf kept his eyes on the other pilot while he emptied both of them before wiping the back of a paw across his muzzle. "I suppose so."

"Good. C'mon, we're going to meet the others and you're going to show us that data you promised. I'm rather keen on finding out what's going on."

"Yeah sure. We'll see what you say about it once you know. No handcuffs?"

"Consider it a measure of trust in your word, or a test to see if you'll behave. Whichever you prefer."

Wolf just grunted in reply, and walked in front of Fox towards the dock. _Will he even believe me? What if he does but he's still loyal to Pepper anyways?_ O'Donnell worried for a moment before realizing that it didn't matter. He'd deal with the shot in the back or whatever it was going to be when the time came. As he passed by the other team members he saw Slippy flinch at his appearance without eyepatch or digital lens hiding the mangled part of his face. White fangs were bared for a moment silently at the frog in return before he hopped up onto the Wolfen's wing and opened the cockpit. He dug out the metal box, knowing he was being watched the whole time with weapons already armed, and set it down on the wing. "Gimme a data cable, would ya?"

Slippy vanished into the hallway and came back a while later with a laptop and a cable. "Not hooking it into Great Fox."

Wolf simply shrugged and leaned down grabbing the cable before sliding it into place. "Like I care one way or the other. Pull down everything in the expanded storage area. It's where you'd normally have that unallocated space that everybody uses for whatever. Assuming you can find it on this model."

The frog gave a huff and tapped away on the computer. "Got it. There's a lot in here."

"Ain't that the damn truth." Wolf opened the metal box, slow in his movements. No need to get shot now over something stupid. He sighed, moving aside the photos and the note from Martin and pulled out a set of dog tags, and tossed them at Fox who quickly snatched them out of the air. "I don't have a lot in the way of proof for you, beyond that data. But that's what I do have. You can run the embedded chips on those, they're legit just like any other set of Cornerian military tags. Never did exactly *wear* them."

Falco narrowed his eyes and looked over Fox's shoulder. "No way. Absolutely no way." The vulpine turned them over and then handed the tags to Slippy who blinked and waved the tags in front of a reader on his laptop.

"This is from our side just before the Lylat War. Like, practically during it almost. Your first name was Ember?" Cross references to things on the tag started getting pulled up on the screen from the copied data, and then the frog started really looking at the data. "Fox, you…want to see this. This is all internal Cornerian Military information. A little about some secret military program involving..well. Wolf. But a lot of it looks like, blackmail against the senate, against generals, against a lot of people. Originating from…holy shit. General Pepper. "

Wolf just sat down on the wing of the ship. "Still is my first name, don't call me that. You kids have no the hell idea how screwed up things really are do you?"

"You are a lying son of a bitch. You killed my father for Andross and now you want me to believe you were some kind of spy for our side? I thought maybe you had changed when you helped us out in the last invasion, not decided to totally pretend you're some innocent bystander in everything!" Falco had to grab his ranting leader from launching at the man sitting on the wing of the Wolfen.

A single claw was held up. "First, Watch your mouth pup, sailor's speech isn't going to fit in with that squeaky clean hero image of yours." Followed by another, as Wolf counted off the points he had to say as if trying to beat them into Fox's head. "Two, I didn't kill your fucking dad. Who the hell ever told you I did? I didn't get off the ground that day. I was too busy going half-blind trying to keep the other team leader Andross had from breaking my cover and getting his hands on our encryption keys. Ask the hare." The aforementioned oldest member of the team had his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Three, the original StarFox team was supposed to be my ticket out of that hell hole. So shut up right now if you think you're the only one who suffered for what Pigma Dengar did. Pepper screwed me after the war, partially because my name was all over things like that. Four, I didn't say I'm necessarily innocent in any sense of the word. I just said I wasn't a traitor and didn't kill your father. Big difference, pup. Most of what's on my record other than that I actually did, and that's only what they caught me at." The last words were said with fangs bared in a snarl, which made Slippy flinch back a step.

"But you fucking *hired* Dengar into StarWolf!" Fox struggled against Falco's grip eyes alight with his rival, who just sat there on the wing looking as if the world could have ended and the lupine wouldn't care. The vulpine looked over at Peppy, as if wanting the older man to confirm his side.

"Yeah because Andross had personal control over team membership until the war was over. We were paid mercenaries sort of, but half the team was him forcing people onto it. Andrew was always a whiney incompetent idiot and Pigma…I'd just as soon shoot him as have to deal with him again. He's long dead though as far as i know."

Krystal was staring at him one hand over her mouth, the telepath knew lies when she heard someone else speak, these weren't. The implications were already starting to form in the back of her mind.

The hare had a hand on his chin, looking thoughtful, and worried. "Fox, I never told you it was Wolf himself who shot your father's ship down. It was his team, but the actual damage was done by Dengar. James lost control of the ship and either went down or was pulled into the singularity. My screens and sensors were damaged enough I didn't know which, they read the latter actually." He looked over at the mercenary "I never really thought about it, but you radioed in that you were on your way on the open comm and then never actually showed up in the air."

Green eyes blinked at the hare as the red-furred leader calmed down and stopped trying to get at their captive. "But on Fortuna you.."

Wolf interrupted him "Said what I was expected to say. You weren't going to come save my ass and neither was anybody else on this side. Rep mattered on Venom, nice guys wound up..lets not talk about where nice guys wound up. Lets just say they were long gone before you got involved in things. I was taunting you, you idiot, of course I used your dad to do it. You nearly lost for it too, which I hadn't anticipated. Frankly I'd expected you to have your shit together more than that."

There was a skeptical look from most of the team with the exception of the vixen, while Fox continued. "Then why not just, go public with it after the war? This would have been a lot more believable then."

"Gee, why would I possibly not go against the most powerful guy in Corneria who was capable of blackmailing anyone practically. I just can't come up with anything. Get a fuckin clue kids. I didn't even know what I was hired to steal until I'd already gotten ahold of it, and at this point I'm dead for it anyways. May as well take that asshole down with me. Lovely place you're trying to protect isn't it McCloud?"

"Actually, yeah, I still kinda think it is." There was defiance from the other pilot who was looking up at him from the floor of the dock.

"Yep. No big fucking shockers there. Pepper's loyal brat to the end. Man up and just fuckin shoot me then would ya? You're not doing anything better or more honorable by keeping your hands clean in this case. You think what Andross did to prisoners was cruel? The other side did nothing better. Nobody ever wonders where all those guys went in the end. Most of them never made it out, a few did and I knew them on Sargasso. Oh the fuckin stories you _don't_ want to hear. Hell, lock me in a room with a blaster if you're too much a coward to do it yourself."

"No, I mean the place is still worth trying to protect. My home is more than it's General. Slippy lets get this thing in the air and out of here. I don't like the idea of sticking around while we figure out what to do with this. Also, um, Wolf, you're…dripping on your ship."

He reached up a paw to his ear and it came away red, having soaked through the bandages. "Ah, well. Isn't that just peachy. I'll be sure to mop your floor later Fox." Boots hit the floor of the dock and echoed through the ship as the lupine dropped off the wing, and looked down at the shorter team leader. "So, you're going to do what with me? You believing me was uh, not really what I had counted on. Ever."

A look of confusion was tossed his way from the shorter vulpine. "Not why I said that. Haven't decided yet. I know the two options on the table right now aren't ones I'm taking. For now, I guess that means you stay here. Everybody else go, do things like we normally do. Wolf, you come with me to the medical bay and I'll look at that. I believe you because, well, lots of small reasons. It doesn't add up any other way. Which makes dealing with Pepper a priority."

Wolf made a face, and tilted his head at his rival as if he didn't understand at all, and followed still peering at his rival like the fox had suddenly grown two heads. "Wait a minute, who asked you to get involved past this point? You know they'll just come after you Fox, they'll kill you and everyone you care about. You let me go and I"ll handle it myself. I'm stuck with it, and I don't have anything left to lose anyways. You aren't, and you have things you don't want to lose - friends, a girl, a home."

He was still looking at Fox with narrowed eyes when the vulpine sat him down and started undoing the bandage on his ear and saw the younger man flinch. "Well, you're right on two out of three. When did you get this?"

"So much for the rumors. Couple days ago."

"How? And this is not going to feel good. It needs to be cleaned out for starters. Stay still." There was the rustle of drawers and the scent of antiseptic in the air followed by the burn of the same.

Wolf answered through gritted teeth, staying perfectly still. "Leon was trying to claim the bounty on me. Knows me well enough he nearly got it too."

"Your own teammate?" Fox blinked, sounding like he wasn't sure what to think of that.

"Ex-teammate. Star Wolf fell apart when Sargasso did. There was never loyalty between my team, not like yours. Leon stayed after the war because he had nowhere else to go and we ran jobs better together than not. When that wasn't true any longer, it ended. Simple as that. Carouso is the only one who wouldn't stab me in the back for the money."

"I guess I always thought you guys were more, well, more like us in that regard." Fox grabbed a clean roll of gauze and some padding and started re-wrapping.

"And I always thought you were far less naive than to believe such a thing, or throw your life away to go against your General. Makes us both wrong."

"Naive? No. It's not like I exactly had any reason to think otherwise. You guys were pretty effective for a bunch of random mercenaries that apparently didn't trust each other. Either way I guess it's irrelevant now. For the rest, none of this is worth having if I tuck my tail and pretend everything's fine. Here." Wolf startled slightly, finding that his rival was holding out a couple of white pills in his paw towards him which he didn't pick up immediately. "Painkillers, although certainly not going to bother me if you don't."

The lupine picked them up and gave Fox another look of suspicion. There was no way the guy was genuinely this nice, or willing to go up against his own corrupt government. Except, it seemed like that was exactly what was going on here. "You genuinely think you're the good guy in all of this don't you?" Wolf said as he tossed the pills back.

"Because I am."


	12. The Friend Of My Enemy

"When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope."

― Pittacus Lore, _I Am Number Four_

**Lylat System - Aboard GreatFox - Day 14 - 14:00 Cornerian Standard Time**

The rec room in the Great Fox had been turned into a war room of sorts, all of the usual furniture shoved to the side for the large folding table and chairs placed around what looked like a huge diagram with names and lines drawn. Peppy rubbed his face tiredly as he stared at the chart and wrote a few more lines on it connecting various entities and people. The past few days had been eye-opening for the entire team and fairly depressing as they all started figuring out how deep the corruption in the Cornerian government ran. Some of the information Wolf had brought them was too old to be of use, but a great deal of it turned out to be relevant despite it's age. Most of the more senior Senators had been manipulated then and there was no reason to assume they still weren't. A few of them had passed away or vanished into obscurity presumably living normal lives, but number of the others who were no longer in power officially had stepped down into prestigious private-sector roles leading companies and the like.

"This is vast, Fox. I had..no idea." The old hare leaned back in his chair, ears drooped.

A red and white tail twitched side to side in agitation as Fox looked over the same notes. "It is. I have to wonder when all this started, or if it's always been that way since Pepper became a General. Maybe before. I don't even know where to begin with this."

"Slippy's still working on trying to analyze more recent events and news archives in light of this right? That might at least give us ..I don't know. Maybe that doesn't give us anything. How do you overthrow an entire regime?" The blue-furred vixen standing next to him mused.

There was a gravelly voice from the couch. "Stop looking at this like a personal betrayal and start looking at it like a war. Although the answer is it isn't easy, you're probably going to lose, and I still say you ought to keep your nose out of this one." Wolf was reclining on the couch across the room, the past few days had been strange enough he wasn't sure what to make of them. Given how well StarFox had treated him, he was wondering if he wouldn't have been better off long ago to surrender to them. Decent food, a safe place to sleep, hot showers and no-one was trying to kill him the first couple days which he had largely been unconscious for, his body trying to make up for weeks of abuse and sleep deprivation. There was an odd sort of truce Wolf didn't really understand between him and the others at the moment,

Green eyes glanced over at the lupine. "Come again?"

"If Pepper was Andross, what would you do?"Wolf crossed his arms behind his head.

"…We'd shoot him. No we're definitely not doing that! Besides, going in alone with no backing the rest of his troops would have us for lunch."

"You ought to be prepared to if you need to, but the point still stands. You want him out of power, because his power is based on fear and manipulation. Just like Andross. Once he doesn't have the hold on his people things will go to shit and fast though. If you want to keep that chaos to a minimum, you've gotta find someone on the inside who can help you, who you can trust. I might add they also have to be competent. Had Andrew been anything other than a whiney brat there'd have been a much longer war, he would have stepped into his Uncle's role and come back far sooner than..Andross' own creations did."

"I get what you're saying but a lot of innocent people die in wars, Wolf."

"A lot of innocent people die under crazy tyrants. Besides, there are no good options here. Welcome to the rest of the universe and the shitty choices you get to make, hero. That said, whose left on the list of your current government that we aren't sure is in Peppers pocket?"

"It's over here" Peppy motioned to a list on the table with a number of names scratched out as they had been moved over to the other larger diagram of the network of corrupted officials. "I'm not sure any of them are actually safe though."

Wolf stood up and walked over and glanced down the list with his one working eye, the other covered up by a black eyepatch. "Got a tablet or something I can use to look some of these up? I'm not putting that damn lens back on if I don't have to."

"Yeah, sure, but, why? Doesn't it give you depth back and a lot of nice extra things besides?" The vixen was the one who asked, while picking up a tablet computer from the edge of the table and handing it over.

"It does, along with fairly frequent migraines. There's enough of those and visual artifacts the first couple days I put it back on that it mostly renders me useless. I'll pass for the moment." He continued to peer over the list and tapped a few things on the tablet and showed it to the older hare who nodded. "Of the ones left, there's about six who might have the power to help us at all. The remainder won't be really useful. I mean, better than nothing but, I'm doubting it. Unfortunately i'm not seeing anything that tells me whether any of those six are trustworthy or not. Shame we don't also know who in the military we could trust."

"Not much for following your own peoples traditions then eh?" The snark came from Falco. The only member of the team who actively still tried to get under Wolf's skin. Wolf really wanted to punch the avian a few times into a wall.

"Shut up, bird. I own what _I_ have done and am. If you're wondering what Pepper held over me, I suggest you get used to pondering it."

Krystal sighed, she'd been breaking up these arguments for a few days now and it was getting old. "Fox, whatever happened to Bill Grey?"

"He's still in, but far as I know he keeps getting passed over for promotions and yet they won't toss him out and beg him to stay. He was pretty frustrated the last I heard. I'll give him a ring and see if we can't meet him somewhere to discuss." Fox folded his arms and glared at Falco then Wolf. "And Falco, you start it one more time and I don't know what i'll do, but you won't' like it"

"Now is not the time for this nonsense. I'm gettin far too old to put up with this, and you lot are far to old to be starting it." The hare at the end of the table spoke up again, and Fox blinked and took a step back. It took a lot to get the old man angry and it never ended well. Falco caught the look the old hare was giving him and shut his beak and looked down.

* * *

**Katina - Aboard GreatFox - Day 15 - 15:30 Local Time **

"Place hasn't changed much has it?" The gray-furred canine asked as he stepped aboard the transport carrier and looked around the ship he hadn't seen the inside of in years. "Heck, you haven't changed much either Fox."

There was a small laugh from his friend since flight school. "What was I going to do with it Bill? Redesign it when we rebuilt her? C'mon. Besides, technically the clauses of the insurance specified so many things I wouldn't have been able to anyways."

"Still shocked they insured such a thing. Huge mortgage on this thing...I remember you worrying about it a lot."

"Like the bank would let us keep the mortgage without it. I don't get how all of that works, but I still have a ship and that suits me fine. I don't worry so much anymore, I've already watched it destroyed once. Worrying wont change where it is again." The vulpine led them into the kitchen and offered a beer while grabbing one for himself. Fox knew it wasn't a social visit but, he missed his friend anyways. "You're sure no-one is going to miss you for a while?" When the dog nodded Fox continued "Good. What I'm about to talk to you about, I trust you. I need you to trust me. You cannot tell anyone."

"Secrets aren't like you, but I assume you have your own reasons and the best interests of everybody. I'll keep my mouth shut." Bill took the beer, and suddenly had his blaster out aimed past the other pilot. "Get Down Fox!"

Wolf just sighed, and ducked behind the couch narrowly missing Bill's shot he'd clearly chosen a bad time to walk into the kitchen. "Well that was far too close for comfort. Hey soldier, unarmed target. Good going." The lupine stayed down on the floor behind the couch as he heard the cry of surprise. "I thought you were having a meeting with him, not sharing a damn beer."

Fox cringed, he hadn't expected that to happen and was kicking himself for not realizing it could have. "Put the weapon away. He's, well, yeah he's unarmed. That's part of what you can't tell anyone."

"Geez! You're kidding me! Have you lost your mind Fox? He'll murder you in your sleep! Nevermind there's a huge bounty on his head anyone with any sense would have shot him and bought their own darn moon by now!" When Bill saw how serious his old friend was about it though, he reluctantly put the weapon way. "I have a wife and kids you know..."

"I"m not going to shoot you. Or hurt you. I was here for some damn coffee." _And people wonder why I never tried to be anything but what I am. I'd have been killed long ago. Idiots."_Forget it though." Wolf shoved himself up off the floor and grumbled as he headed back down the hallway he came.

"Wolf, wait. You may as well help me explain this." Fox gave a rough outline of all the goings on, which got stares from the canine that bounced from one man to the other. Wolf filled in details where asked, arms folded and looking menacingly annoyed.

"Shit, So what do you want out of me then?"

It was Wolf who spoke up for the first time unprompted. "You're one of the only people we know still in the military that we know isn't compromised. We were hoping if you could tell us who else is, or isn't compromised or any ideas on figuring it out. We have a list of senators who might can help us but it's short and we don't know which to go to, if any."

The canine scratched an ear absently as he thought. "Funny thing you should ask, actually. Shit hasn't been right within the Military either. It didn't get too bad until a few years after the Lylat War but things were off even then. I didn't really tell you because you were outside of it all. The past three or four it's obvious there's politics and personal stuff at play and it's starting to compromise our ability to do anything. There's someone else who I've already been giving what information I can do. I don't know the whole sum of things, but I'm pretty sure he does. he's always said I can ask, it's just safer I don't know." O'Donnell sneered, although he shut up with a shrug when he caught the glare thrown his way from both. "It's not what you think. I'm sure he's on our side, just, not..within official channels."

"So how do we reach him?" Fox kept his opinions on the matter to himself, what was done was done and there was no changing it now. Use what he had in front of him.

"I have a number, it changes every few months but I always wind up with the new one. I know the guy as Jamie Eastman, but I know I've heard at least one other person call him Jared. I doubt either are his real name"

"Can you use our comm to try it? I don't know how much more time we'll have before someone tells Pepper who we picked up." Fox started leading them all to the bridge as Bill nodded.

The other end of the connection rang a few times before it picked up, and the voice was obviously distorted, there was no video feed on his end."Hello. Ah Bill? I didn't expect you on this number"

"Hey Jamie yeah It's me Ah, I'm calling from StarFox's ship hence the odd caller ID."

"I know, It's an odd number to be called from." The other end of the call interrupted, although the distortion made the tone of voice impossible to decipher.

"Right, you would know the ID even though not everyone does. So, you know the ...information I've been giving you? I can ask questions but never have? I'm asking now. We've got proof here that could fix things. Maybe. Or destroy them. But, no offense Jamie, you aren't the person it needs to go to. We don't know who is though."

"No offense taken. Although what do you mean proof? The only proof I'm aware of was recently destroyed when a contact of mine was found before it was delivered."

"Wait a fuckin minute!" Wolf butted in. "You're the guy that hired me through Remus! What do you mean before it was delivered?!"

"...O'Donnell. Calling from Great Fox with Bill Grey. I've seen it all now. That said, yes, I am the one who hired you through Remus. Unfortunately he was killed and the datastore was confiscated. It's probably long destroyed by now. It's my understanding you were paid first, although I suspect you're angry about the bounty. "

Fox sighed and shot a look at Wolf to shut up, which oddly the lupine obeyed. "You didn't hear that. We have a copy of that data though. Lets not go into details. I'm not handing it over to some voice I don't know though. What we want to know if any of a small list of senators are also acting on their own and we plan to reach out to one of them."

There was a long silence on the call, unknown to the men grouped in the bridge, James McCloud was choking back tears and all the things he wanted to say to his son. It was so hard to do that he'd stopped trying to leave messages or reach out to Fox at all unless he really felt it was dire. He'd turned on the voice distortion because he knew the ID of what had once been his own ship when it called.

"Jerrard. She's the cleanest and the most likely to help you. I don't need the list to tell you that. I assume she's on it though. You'll have to reach her in person though. I don't know how else to get it to her, I only know of one comm line to her that isn't watched and it's voice only."

"She's on the list, thank you." The vulpine finished and let Bill keep talking for a moment.

"So, um, If you could, y'know, send anything you have to her or ..well anything you can do I guess. I don't think I"m going with these guys though. That'll get noticed before I leave airspace where I am."

"I have some information that I will arrange to reach her. It doesn't stand well on it's own but yours would give it context and make it pretty damning stuff. Listen, you lot be careful. I know O'Donell understand the danger you all are playing with, but Pepper has gotten...unstable in his old age. I would put nothing past the man to keep his power. "

"Thanks Jamie. We hear ya. If that's everything, then, you stay safe."

"Same to you and yours Bill." There was a click as the comm was disconnected.

* * *

**Katina Airspace - Aboard GreatFox - Day 15 - 22:30 Local Time **

"Hey, Wolf?" Fox's voice reached the mercenary who was currently in the kitchen, gnawing on what looked like a protein bar while apparently also raiding the bar given the nearly empty bottle of whiskey in his other hand. Wolf's ear twitched although he didn't turn around. "Look, I'm sorry about Bill trying to shoot you. I didn't think he would do that given where we were."

That did get the mercenary to turn around, the eyebrow above his sighted eye raised."Yeah, you should have." The conversation had clearly gotten uncomfortable on the lupine's side.

"Okay, seriously, what is your deal? I'm trying to be nice here. Hell most of the team has been trying to be nice to you and you still growl at us half the time. Would you rather we had done what you expected instead?" Irritation was clear on Fox's face although he was trying hard not to let it show as much as he was feeling it.

Wolf looked at the other pilot and took a drink from the uncapped bottle in his hand. "What do you mean what's my deal? I haven't decked Falco, I do what you tell me, what more are you asking for? I'll pay you for the whiskey if that's what you're upset about."

"I mean at what point are you planning on actually getting it through your thick skull that we're not going to shoot you or turn you in. Even if Falco has a big mouth. Kinda like you actually. But maybe you could try not glowering at my crew?"

If he hadn't been quite so drunk, Wolf might have just brushed it off with a snarl. But alcohol had that nasty habit of removing filters, and he was completely blitzed. The tone was nothing new, but the level of candor it came with was. "Gee, sorry I'm not a nicer guy? Is what what you want? Fine, I'm sorry I'm an asshole. Not like it's personal anyways. The more folks terrified of me the more folks that don't get bright ideas about how to knock me off. When I don't, people assume I'm up to something even when I'm not. Damned if I do, damned if I don't."

Fox blinked, he hadn't realized his rival was quite so paranoid. Probably justifiably so now that he thought about it. "I know you and I have had more than our share of differences over the years. I'd like to put most of them aside at this point. It's pretty obvious neither of us really knew the other one. I have no idea what's going to happen from here on out, but I think it'll go better if we're all working together instead of just on the same side."

"Uh, Okay?" O'Donnell clearly didn't get where the other man was going with this. "Thought, we were working together?"

"I mean actually trusting each other a little." Fox found himself less irritated given how genuinely confused Wolf was. It had never crossed his mind that the other man really didn't know he was willing to put the past where it belonged, there. "Call it the difference between the truce we have at the moment, and a real alliance."

A purple eye stared back at him as if trying to comprehend what had just been said. "And the rest of your team is in on this? You sure they're gonna be alright with you makin nice like that with me of all people?"

"Yeah, them included. It's a real offer. You have our backs, we have yours."

"For how long?" Wolf eyed the bottle and figured what the hell, and finished it off before setting it down on the nearest surface he could see and turning his attention back to the vulpine.

"Open ended, permanently more or less." Fox frowned watching the other man drink himself further into a stupor.

"That's no kinda contract. You are out of your head. Everyone else in this system would sooner shoot me than say hello." The words were slurred, although the look on O'Donnell's face was a mixture of surprise and possibly panic. He was trying to figure out exactly what the vulpine's angle was and found himself coming to the same conclusion each time. There was no angle.

"I, and my team, are not everybody else. You've done nothing but what you said you would here. Given we kind of owe you our lives and I do twice over, giving you a second chance is kind of small potatoes in comparison. So yes, I'm offering you a second chance. I'd rather be friends than fight you."

"No shit huh? Well that's, kinda...new." Wolf mulled it over for a moment more and then nodded. He wasn't entirely sure why he agreed, but instinct said go with it so he did. "Okay, sure. I'm crazy enough to go along with it."

"Good. First thing I'm going to tell you _as your friend _is lay off the whiskey. More than a few people seem to think you really have gone around the bend, staring at and talking to thin air. You were doing that last night."

The other mercenary started down the hall, although the seriousness of the look on his face unnerved Fox. "Not thin air. Not that you'd understand anyway. She's just..well now i really do sound like I've lost it. She just happens to be dead. Forget it." He stumbled to his quarters, the only sound in the hallway the sliding of the door.

* * *

**Katina Airspace - Aboard GreatFox - Day 16 - 00:57 Local Time **

The pounding at his door woke Fox up in an instant. "What, what..we have a com system for a reason?" He rolled out of bed, still wearing the black tshirt and jeans he'd been in the previous day and hit the button to find himself staring at the face of a very distressed looking Slippy. "What's goin on Slip? Do you know what time it is?"

"Fox, I'm so sorry! I didnt mean to and I didn't know that would happen and I'm so sorry!" The toad looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown any minute.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down. Mean for what to happen?"

"I was backing up the systems on the Great Fox to install a security patch and forgot that the laptop Wolf used wasn't supposed to hook back up. It did. And...there was a program embedded in that data. It sent out a message before I could stop it. Using our comm id." Slippy was pacing back and forth in the hall frantically.

"Shit. You didn't know Slip. Let me wake everyone else up."

* * *

**Zoness - Day 16 - 00:46 Local Time - Apartment of Jared GreySky**

James sank back into his chair holding his head in his hands. The guilt he felt for not being in his son's life was overwhelming at this point, but so was the relief that it hadn't all been for nothing. He'd spent the past couple of hours trying to figure out how to get everything he had where it needed to go in short order.

"Damn you for getting yourself killed Remus. You would have been helpful about now." He sighed and paused, something on the TV that he had left on mute in the background got his attention and he reached for the remote to turn the volume up.

"This is Kylie Thysson, in front of the Cornerian Defense main base here in the city, where it was just announced that the mercenary Wolf O'Donnell has apparently been taken in by team Star Fox, despite the fact he has been declared a traitor. Several days ago most of you may remember that the first death-only bounty in Cornerian history was declared upon the feared mercenary. We are waiting for General Pepper who issupposed to arrive at any moment to give us details about the response to this news."

There were several other reporters in the background, all of whom immediately tried to get questions in the moment the general stepped up to the temporary podium. "My good people of Corneria, it is with the saddest heart that I bring to you the news that it seems that team StarFox captured Wolf O'Donnell several days ago and has been sheltering him from justice. We have intelligence that leads us to believe they now are working with military has revoked their clearance and status with us. Furthermore, given the seriousness of having military secrets exposed to the criminal they are working, the Senate has already agreed to declare Team StarFox traitors to the Lylat system. There will be no answers to questions about our actions to deal with the rouge mercenaries at this point, for security reasons. We will however take other questions now."

James stared, jaw dropped and barely daring to breathe as the very goverment that both he and his son had saved so many times turned against them. The vulpine gritted his teeth and started throwing together what he would need quickly into one of his go bags. He took a moment to put himself together before he tapped the comm again and typed in a number he'd memorized but rarely used. His hand hesitated as it paused over the switch to turn the voice distortion off, and then hit it.

"You've reached Dani Jerrard. I'm not able to answer right now but please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." The recorded voice of the female wolf on the other end picked up.

"Good evening, Danielle." James knew that would get her attention. She didn't care for her full name and nearly noone called her by it. Nobody who would use that number. "This is an old friend. I don't have much time to talk to you. Suffice to say, things are about to get interesting for you in short order. I would get those you care about to safe places. You once swore to me a life debt, in your own people's way. I never wanted to call on it, but I am now. Do what you can for my son Danielle. He's headed your way shortly and you and I both know he is no traitor. Be safe."

With that he hefted his bags and grabbed the sunglasses by the door and hurried out towards where he'd stored his Arwing. It wasn't how he'd planned to break cover, but he wasn't going to stay in hiding now. He cloaked long enough to take off before deactivating the device, going down a long list of names who would all be receiving messages tonight from Jamie, Jared, or James calling in old favors. Fox would naturally try to fight this, and the best way would be to get the information to Dani, which meant he'd be headed to Corneria City. By the time he was halfway there he'd managed to get at least four Colonels to promise their troops to Jerrard, not their official chain of command. Pepper may have been focused on those above him, but James knew where the real work was done and had been working on the ranks below the corrupt leader for a decade. He just hoped it would be enough.


	13. Yield For Nothing

**Author's Notes:** For those of you who have been reading this as it's published, all the prior chapters have been tweaked and revised. Some of them are fairly heavily added to, but the most important alteration plot wise is in Chapter 10 - in short, Panther didn't try to kill Wolf. I think it's worth a look at again, but I'm biased!

Also, I didn't realize any of the Arwings or Wolfen's had ever been given official names. Some of the named ones are the same, but others changed from canon.

I tried to incorporate all the feedback and suggestions I've gotten so far on this story and make it better. I hope I did so. As much as I wanted to stay with one viewpoint through most of the combat, I couldn't figure out how to do it and relay all the things going on. I tried to keep it as clear as I could though, although I certainly want to know if it's not.

Without further ado...the new Chapter 13!

* * *

_"There is no redemption without sacrifice." - D.I. Telbat _

**Corneria Airspace - Day 16 - 1:12 PM Local Time**

Fox clicked into place the last of the smart-bombs and laser charges into his Arwing, the team logo prominently on the side above the script declaring it to be the _Red Avenger_ half of the entire supply the team owned was loaded into his ship. The other half had been loaded into Falco's _SkyClaw_. He shut the panel, trying to choke back the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This time, he knew that all of the men in the air he would be fighting were the people he'd tried so hard to protect his entire career. None of whom could he bring himself to be angry with other than the General himself. Who of course, wouldn't be in the air but safe in his bunker well below the city.

Falco stood behind him. "Fox, let us go with you." They both knew the odds here were absurdly low and the stakes high, just like the early days of the team.

The vulpine shook his head. "Falco, I..I know that we're in this together till the end. But it's going to be hard enough to get one Arwing through the Cornerian defenses, much less two. I was" He swallowed hard, finding that the words didn't want to be said despite how much he meant them. "I was hoping that since we have multiple copies of the data, that I would take the first run at it. If I fail, then...you would try. I don't think they'll expect us to split up like that. At that point, up to you whether you want the others to be flying with you. I'd..advise against it though. So you know, loaded both your and my ship up full. Doesn't leave anything other than the heavier weapons here."

A hand rested on Fox's shoulder, his long time friend looking at him. "Send me after you, what's that a joke? Aren't you the best pilot we've got or was that just bluff on your part? You, better make it on the first go, or I will come kick your tail when this is all over." The bird smiled a little although it didn't reach his eyes. There was a cough from the other side of the hangar and both of them blinked looking up to see O'Donnell walking towards his battle scarred Wolfen II. Falco frowned, he just couldn't get over the idea that Wolf was really anything more than a dangerous and malicious man. "Just where do you think you're going?"

Wolf stepped up onto the ladder to the _Hellfire_ and popped the cockpit open. "With Fox. He's mostly right, we need a plan B and that's you. No offense, kid, but Slippy and Peppy aren't going to cut it for this one. Someone has to man this anyways, would be a waste not too. Krystal's a telepath, how long you think she's going to stay in the air once she starts picking up on the minds and feelings of_ Cornerian_ pilots she's shooting down? No matter how good she is, she's never shot down anything but Andross' creations. Besides, the ammunition for the Wolfen's are slightly different than the Arwings, takes time to convert the holders from one to the other. Only had a couple stashed anyways for, well, a rainy day. Pourin now aint it?"

"Didn't you hear him say that it would be too hard to get two ships through? Or is your hearing half gone too?" Falco got a sharp elbow from Fox who was glaring at him to cool it with the taunts.

The lupine didn't growl or even snap back at the taunt. "That only holds true if he needs to watch out for the other person's tail. I can hold my own, just as much as he can. If I can't? I hope he has the fucking sense to let them shoot me down." He turned his gaze to the vulpine they were talking about and looked at him hard. "Truce or friends or whatever or not, you understand me? I'm not going to rot in a Cornerian jail when this is all over, and I'd be nothing but a distraction at best here. It's kinda pointless for me to not go. I'll follow you as far as I can. Once you make it if I can still bolt, I'm leaving. If not, well, don't disappoint me and make sure Pepper takes the fall for all this shit, McCloud."

The two teammates glanced at each other before Falco just shrugged and then Fox nodded. "Fair enough. I don't like it, but, it makes sense. Y'know, though, if it wasn't going to be ...as bad as it is I would let both of you come and watch your backs."

"I'll remember that if we're all not dead and there's ever better times." Wolf actually chuckled with amusement, and shook his head as he settled down into the fighter. He pulled out the dogeared picture of Lyra and stuck the corner in a narrow slot above his displays, noticing that McCloud had managed to finagle a pair of sunglasses to stay in about the same spot in his own cockpit. Ostensibly it was to hold...who knew what. Something that no real pilot ever bothered remembering, and instead stuck their good luck charms or photos there.

ROB's robotic voice came over the intercom as Falco left the dock and stepped through the airlock. "Dropping out of warp and entering Cornerian Airspace in five minutes."

Quiet settled into the ship dock, other than the click of buttons and whir of systems coming up as pre-flight checks were made, only to be replaced by the rush of air and then silence other than the sounds from within the planes themselves as they shot out into the black above Corneria's atmosphere.

"Incoming cruisers detected. Estimated arrival time in three minutes." The AI's flat voice came over all comms.

Fox shot towards the planet, Wolf right on his heels. They'd both be long landed before the real fight here started. After they broke atmosphere though, it was oddly still quiet.

"Okay, McCloud, Where the hell are all our lovely friends to the party? They can't possibly be this late."

"I don't know, bet they haven't had time to change the encrypted channels in all the fighters though. Tune in."

Static came over the comm and the the cries of an actual battle already in progress. "Squad Three Leader to Ground, target won't surrender or answer comms but he's already taken out four of our pilots!"

Fox caught a glimpse of Wolf through the glass in the other ship beside him and both men shrugged at each other, before Wolf's voice overlaid the other men's , talking on the private channel. "Maybe the universe likes you as much as it hates me. Not gonna ask, just gonna take the good luck."

* * *

Below already in the airspace of Corneria, a lone Arwing streaked across the sky, visible to all of the people below yet not appearing on any radar. Fighters were scrambled to meet it in the air, although oddly at at several squadrons were reporting serious delays in getting ahold of pilots, mechanical delays, communication system failures, anything that could fail seemed to have failed somewhere. Pepper narrowed his eyes at the tablet he held in his hands, secure in the bunker well below the capitol city. He strongly suspected that they were simply reluctant to fight against StarFox, and that was unacceptable. But it was nothing he could deal with right now. All the manpower he was deploying would have been overkill against anyone else, but if Wolf and Fox were both flying in the air against him? Pepper was grateful for the seven stories of rock and metal between him and the air.

"Did you get that radar fixed yet?!" Pepper barked into his own phone.

"Sir, the radar is fine. The ship simply doesn't show up on it anymore. We'll have to rely on visual confirmation only."

Curses came from the General. He had the best radar technology of anyone in the system, how was Fox managing to fly right in front of it without anyone being able to see him! Cuss that man. He was just as conniving as his father had been.

"Sir, we just got reports that GreatFox was sighted dropping out of warp. Cruisers are already deployed."

"Keep me updated, but focus more on that damn Arwing!" The team wouldn't have any direction if it lost it's leader, it wasn't like there was a _third_ generation of ace pilotsin that family.

"Sir, a Wolfen and an Arwing also reported coming in from a different direction. How do you want us to split the squadrons?"

"...What? What the hell are those guys up to! Half to each. The first Arwing has to be Fox, nobody else would be giving us this much trouble! So it would be Wolf and whichever secondary pilot is suicidal enough to trust him in the other."

* * *

It wasn't until Fox and Wolf were practically upon the downtown area of the city that any fighters had been able to catch up with them. They'd overheard the entire time that someone the ground _thought_ was Fox McCloud was taking out pilots elsewhere. Wolf fell back enough to engage the other pilots and try to keep them busy while Fox found a spot to land which wasn't easy. It wasn't like they just put landing strips everywhere. The large park in the center a few blocks over from the Senate Hall was probably his best bet, so much for the landscaping.

O'Donnell tilted his wings and dodged expertly through the skyscrapers, looping back to take out another of the slower military fighters that didn't dare try to follow him. The harder part was the numbers, even though there were far fewer fighters in the air than he'd expected it was still grossly uneven. That and the fact that there were a hell of a lot of obstacles here, probably with civilians in all of them hadn't escaped him. "Give up yet boys? You're going to do more damage to your own side than you ever will to me! You're not nearly as tough as you need to be for this."

Unlike fighting mercenaries, nobody replied. "Gah, wusses." Wolf saw out of the corner of one of his displays that Fox had found a place to land and pulled a somersault, putting himself behind three of the other fighters. He managed to disable two of them before the third broke off pushing it's engines hard to get away. The rest of what he saw though looping back around shocked him. "Fox, be aware we've got ground troops already deployed on us too. They haven't reached you yet but those are definitely black spec ops vans headed towards the courtyard outside of the hall."

"You'd think we went and declared war on the whole system. I didnt realize Pepper had such unilateral power. I'll watch my back, I'm good." Fox expected that Wolf would break out of atmo and try to bolt for it at any moment, like the man had said.

Instead he saw the other ship circle around one last time knocking out another fighter and taking heavy fire in return this time and ducked out of his view among the buildings. Fox tore his eyes away, he wanted to watch to see if Wolf came back up but he had no time to do anything but try to avoid the problems coming his own way. He hopped out of the Arwing, grabbing his blasters and zipped up the jacket with the datastick, and bolted, keeping low to the ground and trying to stay out of sight. The sounds of fleeing scared civilians and raid sirens filled his ears.

He was on the other side of the Central Courtyard when he had to duck from the blaster fire that started coming his way. Fox dove for cover behind one of the concrete walls surrounding a set of steps. _Shit. Now what? _His thoughts raced as he tried to figure out how to cross the remaining distance. He could hear movement behind him, he hadn't been fast enough, he was surrounded.

The courtyard in front of him however, became an unexpected field of chaos as a Wolfen slid onto the brick paving the courtyard, sparks flying from it's underside and the whole ship rotating 180 degrees as it came skidding to a halt. Two of the four wings collided into the large statue in the center twisting them and wrenching them off as they tumbled alongside the still skidding fighter. And the damn thing was STILL firing, although thankfully nowhere near McCloud, until someone managed to take out the main turret. The cockpit was forced open by several troops rushing up to it, only to find it empty.

There was a hoarse chuckle in his comm as a small round device with blue electricity sparking over it came sailing over his head and bounced on the ground before rolling . "Run, pup. You're about to loose comm, and your blaster. and everything else that isn't shielded. Datastick is. Get going." In an instant there was a flash of light and a strange high pitched whine from his comm before it went silent. Fox bolted for the other side of the courtyard towards the steps of the Senate Hall, as he heard shouts and howls behind him. The vulpine stole a quick glance to the chaos that O'Donnell was causing.

The wolf fought like a demon, howls filling the courtyard as he laid into the soldiers anyway he could. No trick was too unsavory and no move too low to be tried at this juncture. He'd done a number on a couple of them with the blade he himself carried, when that was wrested away from O'Donnell he resorted to claws. Two of the soldiers weren't going to be seeing to hit him ever again, as the others tried to take him down. It wasnt' that Wolf didn't feel the blows, he just didn't expect to have to feel them for very long and O'Donnells _didn't_ surrender. One of the soldiers managed to deliver a kick to the back of Wolf's knee with a sickening crunch, earning a howl of agony from the lupine. Who shoved off with the other one and all of his weight slamming into the two soldiers in front of him, still throwing punches as he felt one of his ribs snap under the return throws. _That pup better hurry. I'm not going to buy him much longer._

Fox glanced back forward only to find himself tackled by one of the soldiers who had also, similarly lost comm and any weapons that relied on circuitry. The knife that Fox saw glint in the husky's hand obviously was still perfectly functional. He wasn't going to go down that easily though and hit back at the man, rolling with the tackle and slamming the other man's head into the brick below. He didn't feel the knife hit his arm, as he pressed down on the other man's throat until the soldier fell still. Fox picked himself up and dashed the last length across the yard only to see regular ground troops suddenly take over the courtyard. _Shit. _ He found himself staring down the business end of at least thirty blasters, that were clearly still functional. "Stand down!" The clear commander of the troops yelled.

The vulpine tried not to be sick, how had Pepper gotten this many people here this fast?The soldier in front of him yelled again. "Weapons down and hands up! All of you!" Fox set his blaster on the ground, raising his paws as instructed. Blood ran freely down his left arm as his chest heaved taking in deep breaths. He waited for them to shoot him anyways on Pepper's orders despite the surrender. Moments ticked by as the fire never came. Then he noticed that the same ground troops were aiming at the soldiers who had tried to chase him. Demanding their surrender as well. "If you aren't here on Pepper's orders to kill me, I need to talk to Senator Jerrard. Please. I have information that has to reach her." The guns pointed at him didn't budge, however he could hear behind the riot gear one of the newly arrived troops talking softly into a comm. He took the moment to try and spot Wolf, who he still couldn't find any sign of despite the fact that weapons were being laid down and something resembling sanity was being enforced. The soldier's helmet that obscured any idea of who it was then nodded at Fox and motioned for him to turn around.

The brown lupine form of Senator Jerrard was walking through the chaos on the steps and courtyard as if she strolled through battlefields on a regular basis. A contingent of unhappy looking bodyguards flanked her, to whom she paid no mind. She stopped, well out of arm's distance of the famous pilot. "You sir, have friends in strange places and enemies in even stranger ones. I am hoping what you have for me involves some manner of explanation for what the *HELL* is going on." The senator's usually unflappable demeanor was slowly giving way to the temper her species was well known for.

Fox tried to keep his head about him, and explain as calmly and succinctly as he could. "I do. There's a data stick in my flight jacket's interior left pocket. It is a copy of the data from Fichina, decrypted. It's what Wolf O'Donnell was hired to steal, and what Pepper declared an unheard of bounty on him for taking. When we found him, we wanted to know what could possibly justify a death only bounty. He also begged us to read it. We've always had high clearance with the military and this dates over a decade back, so we took a look. It dialed home, Pepper declared us traitors. The data is self explanatory as to why General Pepper took all of those actions, I was told that you are one of the senators who is not currently being blackmailed by the General, and someone who isn't needs to see it."

The senators eyebrows arched, although that was the only indicator of surprise she had. She nodded to the soldier to Fox's left, who reached into his jacket and pulled out the key, stepping over to hand it to the woman after a careful inspection of it. "Blackmailed? No, certainly I am not being blackmailed. I wasn't aware that anyone was, although that would explain some things. This should be interesting reading to say the least." Brown eyes took in the aftermath of the fights and she addressed the commander standing next to her, barking orders without a moment's hesitation. "What is this? Venom? You have surrender on all sides, go get the wounded medical attention. Including this one. We'll sort it out later and figure out who needs to be arrested, detain them all. Also I want a status update every half hour on whether General Pepper has also been taken into custody for deploying troops on Cornerian citizens without senate authorization! Given that our own senate may also have been compromised if Fox McCloud is telling us truth, I also want Protocol ShatteredGlass in effect, immediately. Declare the city under a state of emergency and all citizens are to immediately remain indoors at their schools, homes, or places of work, or designated shelter, the ones that didn't already flee downtown that is - whichever is closer, further updates to those instructions will come within a few hours." The commander beside her nodded smartly and started relaying more specific orders into his comm.

She turned then to go, but paused and looked back over her shoulder at the vulpine. "If all of that is true, you will have both my and the cities sincere apologies and gratitude. I have no expectations of assuming mere words will suffice in that case either, this was no way to treat people who are our saviors twice before, and perhaps a third time. I'll come find you once I've read enough of this to start giving sane orders. If this isn't true, well ...you'll see me later anyways." With that she turned and ascended the steps again, taking a headset from the younger reddish colored wolf who was her assistant and donning it. Fox could overhear her side of the conversation as she walked away. "Hare said what? Technically not normal surrender protocol but he's damn well right. Unless you want to deal with the public shame of doing otherwise if they're innocent I suggest you let him do it, under a proper guard. Yes on my authorization. Hang the reelections!" Her voice drifted out of his hearing over the other noise as the soldiers allowed an EMT to come up and look at his arm.

Fox could hear the sirens of additional first responders showing up as they led him towards a waiting vehicle, the vulpine let out a small yelp at the sight across the courtyard. Two other EMTs were lifting up a mangled pile of blood-soaked gray fur into a different vehicle. _Wolf._ Fox felt like his heart had stopped as he couldn't tell from this distance if his rival, his friend, had just paid for Fox's life with his own.


	14. Aftermath

**Author's Note:** Well, I think we're at the end almost. I'll probably write one more chapter- an epilogue of sorts. I already have a possible sequel idea, which will likely get started not too long after this one is finished.

* * *

Hope is the embers still smoldering beneath ashes when the fire appears to have burned out.

(Greg Evans)

**Underneath Corneria City - Day 16 - 1:58 PM Local Time**

The tunnels far underground Corneria City were eerily quiet. They'd been built long before Cornelius Pepper had been born, and only used on a handful of times officially. A few parts were in use by various government departments, by and large though, they were a largely forgotten maze of turns with few exits or entrances. Everything he'd ever built had fallen apart,and he wasn't sure how he was going to work his way out of it. Not yet. He needed time to figure that out, and that meant getting out of the city before Senator Jerrard had him arrested or hung on the spot. The hound's muzzle pulled into a sneer at the notion, a fate he didn't believe he deserved. How many times had he sacrificed to protect this city? How many of his connections or actions that weren't strictly legal had been to maintain the safety of it's citizens? Idealistic idiots like Jerrard would never understand why it had all been needed.

The last corner he rounded, the long hallway there he knew would lead out of the city, and the ladder at the other end would bring him up in a shelter that was nestled amid otherwise agricultural land. Pepper hurried, but he wasn't running. He stopped though when he saw a figure up ahead a handful of yards ahead of him, and stared. There stood a brownish-red furred vulpine with aviator sunglasses and cream markings. A red scarf hung around his neck. A handful of people might have mistaken it for Fox McCloud, but Pepper knew instantly it wasn't. He was looking at a dead man, wasn't he?

"Hello?" The hounds voice echoed down the otherwise empty hallway, and the figure of James didn't move. Pepper shook his head, he had to be hallucinating this, somehow. He drew the blaster he was carrying and stepped ahead anyways, his eyes on the other man in utter disbelief. That it wasn't a hallucination became painfully clear when James easily grabbed Pepper's arm, and pinned him up against the wall forcing him to drop the blaster. "…J-James? But, you're…you're dead!"

"No, although I surely thought I would be before I saw the day where you so blatantly betrayed everyone who ever trusted you. Do you have any idea how many people probably died today for your stupidity?" Pepper didn't answer, he didn't have any words. "DO YOU? Of course you don't. Or maybe you do and you just don't care."

"James, I can explain."

"Not interested." Pepper felt the rough surface of rope being tied around his paws and the press of a blaster at his back. "We both get to face our choices today."

The walk was long, and silent after that as they came up in the shelter outside of town. James kept his weapon pointed at the General while he used his Arwing's comm to try and reach, well, shoot, Who was he going to reach? He settled on Dani's official number.

"Senator Jerrard's office. She's not available right now but, um, actually is it urgent? We're kind of slammed. If it's not I really can't even promise she'll get the message."

"She'll want to be available for this. Tell her General Pepper has been apprehended, and the mercenary doing so needs to hand him over."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment before Dani's voice herself came on. "Alright, now who am I talking to?"

"Hey Dani. It's me. James."

"Holy fuck. Where are you? Where is Pepper? How the hell do ghosts make phone calls?"

"The old bunker out on highway 54. Both of us. And, well, not being dead helps. I'll explain later. Really would like to get this traitor off my hands before I loose my temper with him."

"My men will meet you shortly. James, I….Thank you. I don't know where to start but we'll go with that. Does your son know you're around?"

"Unfortunately no." James sighed, he hated that. He wasn't even sure Fox would ever forgive him.

"Oh boy. Okay. Go with my men, they'll bring you to my office after and then we should probably fix that."

* * *

**Corneria City - Day 16 - 5:34 PM Local Time**

The entire floor of the hospital had been closed-off other than staff and military security. Fox hoped that meant that there really weren't very many civilians who'd gotten caught in any crossfire or in areas that had been damaged by the arial dogfight. He had no idea what was going on now, his fried comm unit he'd long discarded and hadn't been able to get ahold of anyone who would know or access to another. It was driving him crazy, that or it was the sling on his left arm, or the loopy feeling from the painkillers they'd given him that was starting to set in. Maybe all three. He absently fiddled with the zipper pull on his ruined flight jacket as he debated whether he would or wouldn't be in any more trouble than he already was if he stole a comm unit and what the easiest way to do that would be when he heard the door to the room open.

Instead of his team he saw a figure that looked a great deal like himself walking up, only age had turned some of the red fur gray and he wore sunglasses. "Dad?" The younger fox stared, wondering if he was really just losing his grip on reality at this point.

James paused stopping beside the bed, and pulled off the sunglasses with a sad grin on his face. "Yeah, kiddo. Where do I even start? I'm sorry for being gone so long. Surprise I'm not dead. Please believe me I wanted to come home or call you so many times?" Fox's father looked down and then back at his son, not sure what the reaction was going to be. If Fox wouldn't forgive him and was furious with him, James felt that was completely his right at this point. Instead his son was on his feet in an instance, hugging him and...was Fox sobbing? He put an arm around the distraught vulpine, a little confused, of all the reactions he'd imagined receiving this wasn't one. "Easy there. You alright? Okay, scratch that, that's a foolish question given today but you get what I mean."

The younger pilot took a moment to manage to collect himself. His father just was the one person who he didn't feel obligated to keep a stoic face in front of. "Fox McCloud" wasn't allowed to show fear or cry, heroes didn't break. "I..I don't know." Fox wiped at his face with the back of a paw and looked at his father again, tilting his head this time. "That other Arwing…I wondered if it was you. Like on Venom. I'm not hallucinating this right? "

James shook his head. "No, you aren't. I promise Fox. You weren't hallucinating the day you defeated Andross, or when you found the recordings I left you. I know..it would have been better if I had just done it without the pretense that I was somehow dead but still around, but I couldn't tell anyone. I've spent the past twelve years finding out just how deep Pepper's corruption went and gathering what I could to try and take him down. I know you'd never tell but if someone realized you knew it would have all been over. That and a lot of people have disappeared over the years after crossing him, I didn't want to walk back into your life just to not be there again."

Fox just stared again, until his father put a hand on his shoulder to get him to sit down. "But, Peppy saw you shot down. Wolf had said you were dead."

"A long, and bizarre story I probably better tell you when they *don't* have you doped up on the fun drugs. They were both telling you the truth, at least as they knew it. Lets just say that I didn't find my way back here until just before you took Andross on." A worried expression looked over the exhausted vulpine, wondering if maybe this was simply too much to put on him. Then again folks had already seen James, someone would inevitably let it slip if his father didn't tell him now. "I"m proud of you, Fox. Not many people have the backbone to go up against someone like Pepper."

A young tabby-striped feline in a white lab coat stepped in the room, a quick knock on the open door. "Sorry to interrupt, in a bit of a rush. You're good to go as long as someone else drives you. I think the guards outside may have some instructions on where you're allowed to go, you should ask them. No hurry on that, this whole floor is still secured off. Unless there's something else you need or want to ask?"

"Actually yeah. Wolf O'Donnell, he was flying with us too. Where is he?" Fox frowned, not finishing the sentence.

The cat looked solemn. "Normally medical information is for family only but, for the independent teams we usually count them as such. Since Wolf flew with StarFox at the moment, I suppose I can tell you." The list of injuries that Pepper's troops had inflicted upon Wolf made even James cringe; numerous broken bones and fractures, torn ligaments and muscles, three missing teeth including one of his fangs, burns and internal injuries from a blaster shot that apparently had hit him _before_ he'd thrown down the EMP device, several knife wounds, a moderate concussion, and a rather nasty respiratory infection that apparently the pilot had been walking around with already.

_You stubborn idiot, O'Donnell. You could have said something._ Fox inwardly cussed at the other man. The tabby adjusted his glasses as he finished. "In short, I'm not going to lie to you, we're doing what we can but I'm not hopeful. They have him back in surgery now. I'll make sure you get a call once we have any other news."

Fox nodded without saying anything at the cat, who went to attend to his other duties with a small frown. James just looked confused. "I'm still mystified as to how exactly you wound up getting him of all people to work with you."

"A long story, I probably better tell you when they *don't* have me doped up on the fun drugs. He was helping us out this time. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead today if he hadn't decided to step in." Fox looked over at his father, normally he would be reporting to General Pepper after a mission, and obviously that wasn't what happened now. The younger McCloud had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, since he could go. "What now?"

James fiddled with the sunglasses in his hand. A soft hrrm sound came from the older fox as if he was thinking. "What now, son? We take you home, I let everyone know I'm around, you get some food, and some rest and we wait. The remaining government knows how to reach us and I'm sure they will once they have things settled enough to try and sort all this out." James followed his son's eyes to the doors the tabby had vanished through, trying to process the idea that he still had his son _because_ of Wolf, not inspite of the other mercenary. "There's nothing we can do by waiting here instead of there."

* * *

"Hey, guys!" Fox yelled out, his voice echoing down the metal hallways, clearly loopy still once he stepped aboard the GreatFox.

The rest of his team, at least the official members, looked up from where they'd been trying to unwind in various ways in the rec room. Falco put down the pool stick where he'd been trying to show Slippy how to play decently. "Hey, look who it is. I thought you were gonna lets us know when we could come get you."

"You did good, Fox." Peppy spoke first, a half grin on his face.

Krystal was beside him and hugging him gently before Fox could answer anyone else. "I'm glad you're alright."

"Yeah, couldn't comm was fried and I dont even know where my phone went. Might still be in my Arwing. Are you guys okay? Whats going on out there?"

Falco was giving the sling a raised eyebrow. "You worry about your own hide, we're all fine. Pepper was apprehended about an hour ago, and a lot of the corrupt senators have either resigned, pled that they had no choice or fled the planet. Along with a handful of CEOs and judges and who knows who else. It's interesting, to say the least. Everything civilian is basically on lockdown to avoid riots. So far so good on that count. Technically all of us are being detained by the Cornerian Government till they sort it out, so we're kinda grounded"

The old hare was sitting at a console and looked over at the team lead. "I'm curious about something though. A few security cameras got footage of what happened in the courtyard. I don't think you want to see it, but it doesn't match up with what we heard on the military channels. If you and O'Donnell were both at the Senate Hall...I thought you were way off course based on what I was hearing about an Arwing on the channels. Who else was in the air? Everyone else was on GreatFox with me."

The rest of the team stared at the older vulpine who stepped into view behind Fox where he'd been waiting in the hall. "Me, old friend. It's a long story.." James didn't get to continue, as he found himself looking up from the ground, his large sunglasses nowhere on him. Stars flew in his vision and his jaw and cheek had suddenly become an explosion of pain. He blinked a couple times as Peppy, the oldest member of the team, was looking down at him his right fist still pulled back. "Ow, jeez, old man. Nice to see you too." James rubbed at his jaw and didn't try to get out from being pinned to the floor. He'd really ticked the hare off, it was likely best to stay down.

"Twelve years! TWELVE YEARS! That I wished the entire time you weren't dead. That I came home to my family feeling it was my fault that you didn't do the same. You're not dead for twelve years and not a word! How could you!?" Peppy's whiskers twitched with anger as he yelled.

"I do have reasons for all of it, but probably not good enough ones. I deserve that and more I know. You're going to have to let me at least try to explain before you lynch me if you want answers."

Peppy looked pissed as all hell still but finally nodded once, and let the other man up before flopping back down in a chair. "Damn you, James. Lets hear it though."

It was well into the hours of the morning by the time the team had heard James' tale and stopped with questions. Peppy was still angry with his teammate but James had a feeling the old hare was inclined to eventually forgive him. Fox had long fallen asleep on the couch while the rest of the team had given the older McCloud the details of how they'd wound up working with instead of against O'Donnell.

James scratched at his chin a moment looking thoughtful. "No kidding. Tell you what, if you guys don't mind me crashing here for a bit, I'd like to see that security footage and make some calls in the morning. I have a few aliases that need to play informant one last time."

* * *

**Corneria City - Day 17 - 10:00 AM Local Time**

The brown-furred squirrel sat behind a polished wooden desk, watching the man behind the camera silently count town to the live-feed cut in. She gave the camera a smile, a subdued one as to not appear annoyingly cheerful.

"This is Kylie Thysson, here at studio WCCB. For those of you just tuning in, this mornings regular programming has been canceled to keep you up to date about the latest developments in what is now being called the overthrow of Corneria's 'Shadow Goverment'. This morning the CEO of Space Dynamics released a statement, apologizing for the fact that all of their communication systems have back doors accessible by the Cornerian Military. The full statement is available on our website, but it accuses the now notorious Cornelius Pepper of orchestrating the arrangement with little choice on the part of the technology giant. Instructions have been released for most models to disable the back door, although that hasn't stopped stock in the company from leading a downward crash. Space Dynamics is down 65% of it's value since the stock market briefly opened this morning only to be closed within a half hour as rapid movement triggered automatic systems to stop all trades. Analysts say whether the company survives will largely depend on what is uncovered in the internal records and memos when the flaws were introduced.

The identity of the third plane in the air yesterday engaging the rouge military units is still a mystery, as city flight control has insisted that the transmitted id of the ship is too questionable to be released. We at WCCB managed to get confirmation that none of the existing mercenary teams who fly Arwings are claiming ownership of the ship or it's pilot.

All non-essential businesses and services are still closed, although that is expected to be lifted by tomorrow. For those of you who are reporting to work today, the commute won't be much better if you are headed downtown as the Central Courtyard subway station is still closed for repairs. Hold on a moment folks, there seems to be something that's just reached the news room here." Kylie tilted her head as she watched her editor grab a marker and scribble frantically on the whiteboard that was placed where she could see it but not the cameras, and for a moment her eyes went slightly wide although she kept her composure.

"This, apparently just in. WCCB has confirmed that a video it received this morning is a copy of security camera footage from yesterday's events in the Central Courtyard. At this time we'd like to ask that parents have children leave the room, due to the graphic and violent nature of the contents. What you are about to see is apparently Wolf O'Donnell, who has topped the systems most wanted list at least twice, attempting a one-man attack on rouge Cornerian Forces attacking Fox McCloud." Kylie fell quiet as the clip played, both in the studio and over the air. A hastily written piece of paper got shoved at her desk with a post it note on top in all capital letters. _STILL VERIFYING PARTS. CAN"T GET MILITARY CONFIRMATION. READ IT ANYWAYS._

When the red light on top of the camera clicked back indicating she was on air Kylie was still staring at the documents blinking. Silence fell over the airwaves for long moments. "My apologies, everyone. I'm..going to just read what has been delivered to my desk here in the news room. This information is not yet fully confirmed but WCCB has been informed by a reliable source..that..." She glanced over at her editor looking at him as if he was sure of the words she was about to read. The man nodded frantically. _Oh you better have an explanation for how you got this later Darrin. Otherwise we are both out of jobs and wont be rehired._

"That Wolf O'Donnell was at one time an undercover operative for the Cornerian Military during the original Lylat Wars. We have not been able to confirm this from any remaining source within the military, however several scanned documents were delivered this morning in addition to the recording that appear to be completely legitimate records of his entry into our armed forces. We do not have word on his current condition either, however no-one has been able to speak with the mercenary team leader. We're going to cut over with Greg Pemberton who is outside Senate Hall where apparently two more elected officials have decided to announce their resignation."

* * *

**Corneria City - Day 18 - 11:06 AM Local Time**

Once the press managed to start getting details, the sensational headlines about the battle with Pepper turned into sensational headlines about Pepper and each of the people who he had pulled into his web over the years. Former senators confessed or claimed blackmail, and sold out others in a bid to lessen their own sentences. Several top military officials were removed from their posts and similarly arrested, while other lower ranked members who had been ordered without choice to do things they knew were wrong stepped forward. When the details about Wolf O'Donnell's past came out, even the talk shows picked up the topic. Hero? Villan? Both? Everyone had an opinion on the matter, to the point that additional security guards were placed outside of the mercenaries room to keep everyone else out.

Fox was currently sitting sideways in one of two less than comfortable chairs, nose buried in yet another newspaper article about Wolf which he was reading quietly aloud when he heard the door behind him open and the familiar jangle of the jewelry Krystal wore moving as she walked in. The vixen sat down in the chair next to Fox's and put a hand on his uninjured arm. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Just.." Fox sighed, and looked over at the still unconscious man who had woven in and out of his life for over a decade in destiny-altering ways. "I feel kind of bad, that…Wolf never thought any of us would believe him. He could have gotten out after Andross was killed if he had just shown people then what was going on. Instead he thought we would all toss him aside and Pepper would kill his sister."

"Can you say for sure that we wouldn't have Fox? You still thought he was responsible in part for your father's…supposed death. Thousands of people were dead on Corneria and all over the system and Wolf's name had been plastered all over it by being one of Andross' ranked and his top pilot. Even if he hadn't been giving any of the actual orders."

"No, I can't, but I wish I could."

"I think that's true of several people right now."

"I'm not sure we're going to ever get the chance to tell him any of it though, Krystal. I believed him in large part because Pepper had already gone and made it clear we were his enemies now too. Wolf _knew_ that and he still threw himself in to save my skin. A third time. It doesn't..it doesn't seem right."

The blue fox just nodded, she understood more than perhaps Fox himself did what the other vulpine was feeling. "Seeing as your people and technology have nothing left to try, I thought I would."

Fox tilted his head at her "Are you sure that's a good idea? I don't want to see something happen to you too for trying it." Green eyes looked over at her both worried, but wide at the idea of her being able to do something and trying not to put too much into what was likely a long-shot. They might have fallen apart as a couple, but Fox still cared a great deal for the vixen and her well-being.

"It may not be a good idea in that I"m not sure it will work, but I know it's not a bad one. I'm fairly certain that the worst thing that happens, is nothing happens."

Fox McCloud looked at her a long moment, and then nodded at her. "Do you need me to do anything then?"

"Just make sure that no-one disturbs me for the next little while. I'll be back shortly." With that Krystal sat down and for all intents and purposes looked like she'd gone to sleep instantly, slumping over in the chair.

Krystal saw herself standing on a dirty street in one of the poor neighborhoods of Corneria that had been demolished years ago. But in Wolf's mind, it still stood. No-one was there, just graffiti and decay. As she wandered towards the edge of the neighborhood she found herself walking into a forest. Dark, and quiet, the path she was on stretched out towards the horizon. In the distance she could see the light of a fire in the center of a small town that was distinctly not Cornerian in architecture or style. The buildings were made of wood, and stood apart from each other connected by dirt paths. Lanterns hung across ropes tied between buildings, oil fed wicks burning in each, swaying gently in the breeze. She heard the sounds of children playing and laughing, and the howls of amusement from older wolves as she reached the town. Wolf was sitting around a fire pit, still wearing a flight suit and his boots but no longer in need of the eyepatch, talking amid several others of his kind. The faces weren't distinct on most of them, just figures of various earthy colors acting through the scene, except for the ones right nearest the pilot. A female white furred lupine with the same purple eyes as his sat on either side of him. One was older than Wolf, and shorter than him but taller than Krystal. The other was shorter than Krystal and looked as delicate as a glass sculpture. The smaller one immediately put a hand on Wolf's back who growled softly as heads turned towards the vixen. The older female gave Krystal a small knowing smile. Across the fire pit a gray lupine who resembled Wolf in everything but yellow eye color and age, had been expounding on some story and got quiet when he saw everyone else's attention turn.

"Wolf?" Krystal stepped forward calmly, making sure to keep her hands where he could clearly see she meant no harm. "You need to wake up Wolf. This isn't real."

"Don't care, it's real enough. What the hell do you want from me now?" His voice was filled with anger, which didn't match the rest of the expression or body language that simply projected _tired._

"I don't want anything from you, but you should know that there are other people who really do want you to come back."

"Right, so they can throw me on trial and in jail and have their sideshow. Let Corneria find someone else to use and throw away. There's nothing for me there. Tell whoever it is I don't give a shit what they want and _fuck off_."

"Strange thing to say about the guy who you've saved three times" Krystal said quietly, a look on her face that looked almost like she was gently scolding.

Wolf paused then, and tilted his head at her, the angry look fading. His ears flattened, the same defeated look Krystal had seen when they had captured him.

The smaller girl who was clinging to him leaned up to her brother and whispered in his ear words only he heard._Not all futures I see end badly, I told you this was somewhere to wait a while, not somewhere you can stay. You have to choose Ember. I would go with her, and know we'll still be waiting for you one day. But the choice is yours and yours alone. _

That Krystal couldn't make out the words was odd, and drew a small frown to her face. She should have been able to make out everything that Wolf himself was thinking. The tiny lupine gave her a grin, and Krystal's fur stood on end. Wolf was not the only entity here, something of the smallest wolf in the circle was also here. Wolf was looking at Lyra as tears matted the fur on his cheeks, he buried his muzzle against her shoulder giving her a tight hug before he stood up and looked at Krystal.

"Alright. If I wake up in some jail cell i am going to be _really fucking angry_ with you."

"You aren't going to be in a jail cell. I'm not going to tell you its all going to be pleasant when you wake up, but nobody is going to arrest you." Krystal offered the taller pilot a hand which he took, looking at her as if she might still attack him. "Besides, it can be Fox's hand you hold when you wake up." Wolf gave her a stare of shock, and the vixen tapped her forehead. "Telepath and empath. Of course I know." Wolf furrowed his eyebrows at her getting at least that part but...Fox didn't ..unless..what the heck was Krystal implying here anyways?

Krystal just shrugged at him, the image disappearing entirely as she woke back up in her chair and there was a low groan of pain from the other side of the room, as a barely open purple eye glared at her. He tried to find the energy to sit up and start planning how to get out of here, which he found at the moment absolutely impossible. He felt like most of him was made of lead, and the only places on his body that weren't a mass of agony, were ones that rather terrifyingly he wasn't sure he could feel anything at all.

"Wolf! You're back!" Fox gave a quick glance to Krystal to make sure she was okay before he was the only thing in Wolf's limited view.

Wolf started to try to talk and found the oxygen mask on his muzzle in the way, which once Fox realized what he was struggling with slid it gently to the side. Wolf's voice sounded odd to his own ears, hoarse and slurred. He found he only had the ability to only get a couple of words out at a time before he needed to take a breath. He quickly discovered anything but a shallow one sent pain ripping through his chest like fire. "No shit… dead wouldn't hurt….this much."

Fox cringed, seeing how much pain the other man was in and held one of Wolf's hands in both of his own after hitting the call button on the wall, not sure what to do. He never enjoyed seeing anyone in pain, he always wanted to fix it somehow. "Guess not. I owe you big time. I couldn't have taken all of those guys on myself, not in a million years. Seems you've saved my life a third time."

Wolf just gave him a look. "Maybe. Least..we proved…. you can count." A nurse walked in with one of the doctors in tow, both suprized to find the injured mercenary awake. Wolf made a raspy whine noise when the doctor shined a light in his good eye, the nurse checking the monitors and both shrugging at each other.

"Easy Mr. O'Donnell. Just had to make sure you were back with us enough to give you anything for the pain." The nurse said in a quiet voice, as she took a syringe from a pocket in her own coat and emptied it into one of the ports in the many iv lines already in use. "There you go, just give that a minute. " She looked over at Fox and Krystal, addressing them before both she and the doctor left. "Don't let him get too talkative, please."

The warm numb feeling that had started in Wolf's arm was spreading to the rest of him, and he relaxed letting his head sink back into the pillows underneath him, breathing a little easier.

Fox wasn't sure when Krystal had slipped out of the room, but she had, and he found himself the only other person besides Wolf. "I'd like to ask you something, Wolf."

"Uh huh." For a moment Wolf looked peaceful, the vulpine could only assume from the drugs.

"Why did you do that? Leap at Pepper's men? I know what you said about saving me before. But those times you weren't throwing yourself at nearly-certain death for me." Fox felt a little bad trying to press him now for an answer. He simply had to know. It was gnawing at him and would continue to do so until he got an answer.

"Cuz I hate him...an seemed like the right thing to do…and I didn't want to watch the only person who believed me die..for giving me a chance. Been..a long time since ..I could call someone a friend." The words came out without thinking about them. "Shit..no fair. M'drugged.. I didn't say that." He was struggling to catch his breath after answering and Fox moved the mask back onto his muzzle. A brief moment of worry and embarrassment flitted through Wolf's mind, before he found himself pleasantly drifting in a state of non-caring.

Fox grinned, and shook his head. "No, I'm not going to forget that. The secrets already out to everyone that you aren't completely awful. Tough shit, you're stuck with friends now."

* * *

Wolf was startled each time over the next few days that he woke up and found anyone else there. _He isn't used to having someone stick around that isn't there for their own gain. _The realization gave Fox a great deal more patience when dealing with snarls and growls about wanting to be let up and out of this joint already. It didn't take too long for him to also connect that the more Wolf snapped about anything but being in pain and wanting something for it, the more likely that was the problem.

"Wolf, lets assume I snuck you out of here right now, exactly where do you think you'd go? If you haven't noticed, you're not walking there." Fox asked after another round of complaints.

"I..." Wolf's voice died as he realized he had no answer to the question. He had no idea where he'd go when they let him out. StarWolf wasn't exactly going to come back together, not after he'd killed Leon. Sargasso was long shut down. His Wolfen was half wrecked. He was worse off than he'd been in with nowhere to go and living out of a cockpit. "Damn."

"That's what I thought."

"Well, gee mister hero, I'm sorry that not all of us exactly came out for the better after each of those wars. I'll absolutely remember to tell my next employer that even if we loose I still want to be paid? Get real." Wolf scowled, and then sunk back against the bed with a look of depression that was new to Fox. "Except there isn't a next employer given I'm not going to be flying anytime soon either. Why didn't you and Krystal just leave well enough alone?" The lupine was seriously beginning to wonder if he wouldn't have been better off dead. He had nothing, not even the ability to fly right now. Which no longer mattered given the odds he could ever pay to repair his ship or getting hired again were non existant.

Falco had been the hardest person to win over on the idea. James had said it wasn't his team to decide. Peppy had sworn up and down he was too old for this nonsense and he was absolutely going to retire, but that he'd support the decision Fox made even so. Krystal had been completely supportive of Fox's proposal, which reassured Slippy enough to give his okay. Falco had tried to come up with every possibly argument as to why Wolf was only in this for his own gain and really couldn't be trusted that much, until he'd run out of reasonable arguments and finally was trying to stand on "just because". "So, what if I said there is a next employer? StarFox runs better with five, my dad isn't rejoining but retiring instead, which is what Peppy wants to do as well. Slippy doesn't want to fly really, so we're short a pilot."

A purple eye stared at the vulpine in disbelief. "You're joking."

"No, I'm really not. The rest of the team already agreed. Obviously you wouldn't be taking any missions with us immediately, but you certainly could live aboard the GreatFox anyways."

The lupines expression went from disbelief to anger for a moment to a mix of relief, embarrassment, and ever so tentative hopefulness. "You are by far..well no you're not the craziest person I've ever met. But you're damn close. For lack of other options you win, I'll join up. You do realize that's going to tarnish your team's reputation having a criminal like me around right?"

"Not as much as you'd think. The press got ahold of most of the details about why you'd been with Andross to begin with and someone leaked the very start of the fight with Pepper's me. I think people will be more than willing to hire us all."

Wolf tilted his head at Fox, clearly having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that he was not only not a wanted criminal with a bounty on his head, but that people didn't loathe him completely. "I'm out of it for a little while and the world turns upside down."

"Something like that. you realize of course, that this means you should call me *boss* not pup" Fox had this ridiculous grin on his face when he said it. It was far too much fun really to banter with the lupine.

"Hell with that! I said I'd join, I said nothin about calling you boss! I'm still older than you, pup! You want me to call you that you get to earn it and best me flying when I'm _not_ trying to let you win without you knowing it!" Fox ducked to easily dodge the pillow that was tossed at him, laughing all the while.


	15. Starting Over (Epilouge)

**Author's Notes:** There we have it. My first fanfiction, and first completed story. What started as a strange little idea that somehow became 15 chapters and over 62,000 words. There may be revisions later, in fact there probably will be. But we'll call the first pass at it done.

**Thank yous to the following people on **: ChaosLeader and Scarred One for advice, help, and encouragement!

I figure if I write damn near a novel, I get to be sappy for five seconds here. Nyah.  
**And the following people who aren't:** FallenYote - you are always and will always be, one of the people who mean the world to me. Not just because you put up with reading my stories and my shennanigans.

* * *

_"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde_  
**Corneria City - 2 Months Later - 4:30 PM Local Time**  
The dust settled quicker in some cases than others on Corneria. Emergency elections had been organized in fairly quick order, although not all of the senate seats had been filled yet. Senator Jerrard had been appointed acting Chancellor, effectively putting her in charge until more normal elections could be held.

James was still temporarily living on the Great Fox. Being not dead was turning into a giant paperwork headache, he was planning on just renting an apartment with one of his aliases that weren't so problematic if he had to. Peppy was in and out, boxing up his belongings and moving them to his permanent residence in the city, although half the time he stuck around sitting on the boxes he was supposed to be moving out. Fox was debating starting a betting pool on how long Peppy would _stay_ retired. Once the hare had suggested that the senior McCloud _sell_ the fighter he wasn't going to be flying anymore to use the money while he sorted things out the other vulpine had changed his mind entirely and grumbled about staying freelance instead.

Fox had been wearing an amused grin all week, and the team leader wasn't the only one wearing one. It was starting to unnerve Wolf. O'Donnell had started to look forward to the boring stuffy dinner and ceremony for StarFox just to get it over with so everyone would stop acting so _strange. _Even if it did mean having to wear a suit, which might have been the second time in his life he'd ever had to.

Krystal reached over while they were driven by car to the Chancellor's mansion, and undid the messy knot Wolf had made of his tie. "Oh come on Wolf. It's a tie, not a piece of rope to hold down a tarp."

He snorted "Not good at these things. This is not gonna go well." Falco was snickering in the seat behind him. "Don't make me come back there, bird."

"Guys. Behave. Did none of you _ever_ grow up?" That was James from the seat in front to which Peppy called from the back "Are you kidding? You didn't either. If they were going to be well behaved they'd not have become mercenaries!"

Fox was trying to flick a paper football between his dad's ears and quickly crumpled it up and stuffed it in his pocket deciding perhaps later. He leaned foward to talk to the lupine. "Now, we get out, there's probably going to be photographers all over between the car and inside. So you know." Wolf nodded he got the subtext._ In other words, don't flip out at all the flashes and clicking noises it's not weapons._ "Try to look y'know, friendly, maybe even a little. It'll go over well with the papers." Wolf gave a completely uneasy forced smile at Fox, which, mostly just highlighted that he was still missing a fang and made him look _more_ intimidating not less. "Um, nevermind. Maybe just try not to scowl so much." The lupine just sighed.

What in the world had the team so excited? This was boring. There were a handful of people who were actually friends with various other members of StarFox, but by and large it was full of military and the kind of people you knew were there because they were expected to be. Wolf tried not to open his mouth in ways that would offend anyone, which mostly meant not talking very much. He recognized a couple of the military officers, they were people he'd run into before and in no good context, uneasy glances were exchanged but that was all.

He also hated being this out in the open, almost unarmed (what Fox didn't know he wouldn't find out unless something _did_ happen), knowing that if anyone decided to make an issue of old grudges, he was far from ready for a fight. When the rest of the team was rounded up and herded on to the stage, with the addition of James, Wolf got guided to the side of the outdoor stage. He stood there awkwardly, trying very hard to blend in with the backdrop curtains.

_Blah blah blah..Blah. blah. Blah._ Medals being presented to the other members of StarFox was nothing new to anyone. _Hell, they could have just mailed them. Even Falco has this damn speech memorized._ At least this part was short. Oddly the team didn't rejoin him immediately as they left the stage amid loud applause, he was pondering over what that was about when he noticed Jerrard hadn't left the stage. His ears perked up as the Chancellor started talking again, that wasn't expected from the outline of events that had been given.

"One moment, everyone. If you would." Everyone instantly got quiet, and was for the most part looking at her curiously. The brown and tan lupine then motioned at Wolf, who looked around for a moment before realizing nobody else was standing near him. He stepped over slowly, both unsure of what was going on and far from completely healed, the stiff leg brace under his suit was testament to that. He stopped standing next to Jerarrd, looking out into the crowd who was also seemingly unsure of what was going on. "There's an interesting bit of Cornerian law, that prevents me from awarding the same recognition to anyone who has a criminal record." Wolf's ears lowered, already angry this was going far worse than he had thought it would. Fox had sworn up and down they wouldn't be doing anything except the awards. Wolf reminded himself that he'd been through _far _ worse without anyone wrestling more than a snarl from him. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of it, he set his jaw looking for all the world like he didn't care. "Which, is only one of many reasons that the only reasonable thing to do is to grant you a full pardon." Jerrard's attention turned from the audience to the mercenary beside her who was looking at her funny like she'd said the sky was green. "A pardon for everything, although it doesn't list acts committed in your time with the Venomian Army. Those, have actually been overturned by the high court."

"What?" Wolf stared, wait, what had the woman just said? There was no way in hell, and yet, there it was. The other lupine just smiled at him and continued.

"I can't in good conscience allow anyone to say that you ever actually betrayed our side, when it's we who betrayed you. This system didn't exactly greet you with welcome when you arrived here, and yet you fought for us anyways. When we left you for dead, you still came back and risked everything for not just Star Fox but all of us more than once. There isn't a way to repay you for that, but I want to make this a start. And as a man without a criminal record, I am honored to present you with the Lylat System Medal of Valor, for exceptional courage and fighting at great personal cost to yourself for the safety of us all."

Wolf was just standing there with not a damn thing he could think of to say while Jerrard said some more things he didn't quite catch, mostly addressed at the audience. Eventually he just gave a lopsided grin as he was fairly sure the photographers were trying in fact, to use those flashes as weapons to blind people with and ducked down enough so the shorter woman could put the ribbon and heavy pendant over his ears. The rest of the night was mostly a blur of people _wanting_ to talk to him until finally as people left Wolf managed to get back to where everyone else was sitting at one of the tables and Falco handed him a beer identical to the ones the avian and Fox were holding. "You knew! You all knew. That's what you were grinning about so damn much this week."

"We suspected. Technically we didn't know for sure. But when we had to show up to state whether we thought you were willing to stay on this side of the law, it was kind of a giveaway." Fox answered him. "See, told you it was going to be just fine."

There was a glimpse of a short lupine with white fur in the leaving crowd, who disappeared into it. Wolf grinned before turning his attention back to the team leader seated near him_._ "Yeah yeah, we'll see pup. We'll see."

* * *

**In The End ...**

Peppy retired, only to be requested to replace General Pepper as commander of the military. Once his hierarchy of corrupt and compromised people were ousted, it hadn't left a lot of choices within the ranks. The hare gladly accepted.

Slippy was the next to leave the GreatFox, talking about a girlfriend he wanted to marry which was news to everybody else. He promised he'd come back, although he wasn't sure that he would want to keep flying as a mercenary.

Panther Carouso found his own bounty permanently suspended for lack of evidence that he'd actually committed the crimes that Pepper's bribed judges had convicted him of. He'd shrugged, declared the only difference was making it easier for him to find jobs, and continued freelance as he had since StarWolf dissolved.

Cornelius Pepper was tried in one of the shortest trials for so many crimes in anyone's memory. Despite everything he'd done, the debate was mostly over whether he counted as an actual traitor to be executed, or just exceedingly corrupt to be thrown in prison. The jury opted for the former, and rumor had it that the former General had gone out snarling about how much the system would miss him the next time trouble came.

James McCloud decided not to retire after all, between having to sell his ship and finding himself quickly missing everything about it, well almost. Two months on the ground was driving him crazy. He officially rejoined the team, although his son remained in charge.

Fox, Krystal, Falco, and Wolf rounded out the five member team.

* * *

Fox was staring out into the horizon, watching the last of the light from sunset from one of the wings of the _Red Avenger _as he mulled over various things on his to-do list and a couple of tentative jobs that had reached his ears. Fox glanced over at Wolf who was sitting on the wing of the rebuilt _Hellfire _which was sitting next to the Arwing as both fighters rested on the asphalt. Wolf had his arms behind his head, watching not the sunset but the other direction as black took over blue in the sky. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you actually look not-miserable and pissed off O'Donnell."

"Stuff a sock in it, McCloud. So what if I am? Shut yer yap and stop trying to wreck it." Wolf replied lazily, not really annoyed and still grinning slightly.

"Nevermind…" Fox just smirked and O'Donnell rolled his eyes. "No, seriously, what's got you so pleased over there? Tell me you didn't prank Falco again."

"I have not pranked anyone. Just enjoying the night sky and knowing I get to fly it again. So sue me. Ask your dad about it sometime pup, he'd understand and probably agrees. I know where I was meant to be, and it's good to be there."

"You were meant to be with StarFox? What?" Fox was raising an eyebrow at him wondering what strange sense of fate that had to be.

"No, McClueless. In the black, out there, among the stars."


End file.
